Thai Chicken Coconut Soup

Thai chicken coconut soup, also known as Tom Kha Ghai, is a coconut-based soup flavored with ginger and lime. Its creamy coconut broth is cooked with shiitake mushrooms, fish sauce, and chicken thighs, and it is garnished with cilantro and optional chili oil.

Yes. Lemongrass is traditional in this soup, though the recipe’s ingredient list doesn’t include it. The recipe recommends adding some if you can find it, because lemongrass gives the soup a slightly fruity flavor. The base flavors come from coconut, ginger, and lime.

Heat comes from chili oil, which traditionally tops the soup and is optional in this recipe. The creamy coconut milk mellows the heat, so you can add as much or as little chili oil as you like. No other ingredient in the recipe adds chili heat.

Thai chicken coconut soup takes 35 minutes in total, including 10 minutes of prep, and yields four servings. The ginger and mushrooms cook first for about 7 minutes, then the chicken simmers in the broth for about 15 minutes until it is no longer pink.

The recipe uses boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into one-inch pieces, which cook right in the soup. Cooking the thighs directly in the broth makes them extra tender and flavorful, and they are done once no longer pink after about 15 minutes of simmering.