Thai Chicken Soup (ต้มข่าไก่)
Tom Kha Gai
This is Thai chicken soup for the soul. It’s a one pot wonder. It’s one of the most well known Thai dishes and because it’s so simple and easy to make I knew I had to Keto it up. My wife was the one who suggested I make this. So she’s on the show tasting the soup along with me. Anyway, enjoy the recipe.
A versatile soup
What’s great about this soup is how easily you can make it with different ingredients. If you have some seafood on hand you can use that instead of chicken. If you are vegetarian just use some vegetable stock and throw in pieces of tofu and other vegetables of choice. You can also do this with some beef or pork. The key is to gently cook this and let all the flavours infuse. And remember just chop those chillies up if you like it spicy. I didn’t and I couldn’t feel the heat at all.
If you want to drop the carb count of this dish then what you can do is use less mushrooms and shallots because that’s largely where the carbs are coming from. The lemongrass, galangal, kafir lime leaves etc just flavour the soup and we discard them and don’t eat them. Unless you eat the chillies they add no carbs just flavour.
Nutrition Info (Per serving)
- Calories: 310
- Net Carbs: 6g
- Carbs: 7g
- Fat: 21g
- Protein: 23g
- Fiber: 1g
This recipe makes 6 servings. Get this recipe on myfitnesspal. And how do you calculate how much 1 serving is? Just weigh the entire soup after it’s cooked and divide the soup weight by 6. That’s how you figure it out. There are chances your soup volume might vary from mine depending on the coconut cream you use, how much you cook out the soup etc etc. So just divide it into 6 equal portions.
Thai Chicken Soup
Ingredients
- 500 grams Boneless Chicken Leg and Thigh Meat
- 500 ml Water
- 400 ml Coconut Cream Try this one
- 200 grams Oyster Mushrooms
- 50 grams Shallots/Pearl Onions/Onion
- 1 Tbsp Fish Sauce Try this one
- 1 Tsp Salt
- 1/2 Tsp White Pepper Try this one
- 2 Thai Bird's Eye Chillies Buy Online
- Two bulb of fresh lemongrass, discard the leaves
- a thumb size piece of galangal If you can't find galangal you can use ginger
- 6 kaffir lime leaves Buy Online
- 2 Tsp Lime juice
- a handful of coriander
Instructions
- Start by prepping the ingredients. Cut the chicken into bite size pieces. Roughly chop the oyster mushrooms. Clean and slice the galangal into rounds. Cut the ends of the lemongrass, bruise it with a rolling pin or the back of your knife and cut into pieces. Slice the chillies for more heat or leave them whole if you like them less spicy.
- Get a wok or a saucepan on the stove on a medium high heat and add the water. Season it with the salt and add in the lemongrass, galangal and the shallots.
- Once the water comes to a boil add the chicken pieces in and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Then add in the coconut cream, red chillies, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves (make sure to tear them), white pepper and mushrooms.
- Simmer on a gentle heat for about 10 minutes till the mushrooms and chicken is fully cooked.
- Turn off the heat and add in the lime juice and coriander. Taste for seasoning and adjust to taste. More lime juice if you like it sour.
- Serve!
