Must try in Thailand

Tom Yum Goong.

Name: Tom Yum Goong (Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup)
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Thailand
Ingredients: 400 g large shrimp, shell-on if possible; 1.2 l water or light chicken stock; 3 lemongrass stalks, bottom third only, bruised and cut in 5 cm lengths; 8 thin slices of galangal, bruised; 6 makrut lime leaves, torn, center stem removed; 4 thai bird's eye chiles, lightly bruised; 3 small shallots, halved; 200 g oyster or straw mushrooms, torn or halved; 1 tomato, in wedges; 3 tbsp fish sauce, plus more to taste; 3 limes, juiced (about 5 tbsp); ½ cup cilantro leaves; 1 tbsp nam prik pao (roasted chile jam)

Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup

ต้มยำกุ้ง · Tom yam kung · say it: tome yum GOONG

Tom yum goong is a broth built for maximum aroma: lemongrass, galangal and makrut lime leaves bruised and simmered until the liquid smells like a citrus grove, then loaded with shrimp, mushrooms and bird's eye chiles, and finished off the heat with fish sauce and fresh lime juice. The taste is a controlled collision — sour and hot up front, salty underneath, with the shrimp's sweetness holding the middle. It is fast food in the best sense: fifteen minutes of actual cooking. The only real skills are bruising the aromatics so they give everything up, and adding the lime juice off the boil so it stays bright instead of turning flat and bitter.

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Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup

Gate: ThailandCentral Thailand
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 20 min
Total time: 35 min
Serves: 4
Status: Easy
Nutrition / serving · estimated: Calories 190 kcal; Protein 24 g; Carbs 12 g; Fat 5 g; Fiber 2 g; Sodium 1400 mg

Why this recipe works.

Shrimp shells go into the broth first — five extra minutes that give the soup a real prawn backbone instead of watery aromatics.
Lime juice and fish sauce are added off the heat, the detail that keeps the soup bright instead of flat.
Covers both styles: clear (nam sai) as written, creamy (nam khon) as a two-ingredient variation.
Honest about what the aromatics do — they flavor the broth and stay in the bowl, but you do not eat them.

Tips from our kitchen.

Buy shell-on shrimp if you possibly can. The shells and heads, simmered briefly, are where most of the prawn flavor lives — peeled bagged shrimp make a noticeably thinner soup.
Bruise the lemongrass and galangal hard — smash them with the flat of a knife or a pestle until they split and smell loudly. Intact aromatics keep their oils to themselves.
Add lime juice and fish sauce after the pot leaves the heat. Boiled lime juice turns dull and slightly bitter, and boiled fish sauce loses its top notes.
The aromatics are left in the bowl for looks and aroma but are not eaten — warn your guests, or fish them out before serving.
Taste at the end against this target: sour leading, heat right behind it, salty underneath. Fix with more lime, more chile, or more fish sauce respectively.
Oyster or straw mushrooms hold their texture in broth better than button mushrooms, but use what you have.

Substitutions.

Galangal → Ginger, in half the amount: An honest downgrade: ginger is hotter and lacks galangal's piney, citrus edge, but the soup still works. Frozen galangal from Asian markets is nearly as good as fresh.
Makrut lime leaves → A wide strip of lime zest per leaf: Approximates the citrus perfume. Dried leaves are a weak substitute; frozen ones are excellent and keep for months.
Shrimp → Sliced chicken breast or firm white fish: Both are traditional variants (tom yum gai, tom yum pla). Simmer chicken a few minutes longer; slide fish in gently at the end. Without shells, use stock rather than water.

Variations.

Tom yum nam khon (creamy): Stir 1–2 tablespoons of nam prik pao (roasted chile jam) and a good splash of evaporated milk or coconut milk into the finished soup — the richer, orange-tinted Bangkok style.
Tom yum gai (chicken): The everyday household version with sliced chicken instead of shrimp — use chicken stock and simmer until the meat is just cooked through.
Tom yum noodle bowl: Ladle the soup over cooked thin rice noodles for a one-bowl meal, a common street-stall move in Bangkok.

Storage & reheating.

Tom yum keeps 2 days refrigerated, though the shrimp firm up and the aroma fades — reheat gently to a bare simmer, then re-season with fresh lime juice off the heat to bring it back. Better plan: refrigerate the strained broth alone up to 3 days (or freeze it 2 months) and drop in fresh shrimp, mushrooms and lime when serving.

Serve with

Steamed jasmine rice on the side — Thais spoon the soup over it or alternate bites — as part of a shared meal with a milder dish for contrast.

The story behind Tom Yum Goong.

The name is a recipe in itself: tom means "to boil" and yam is the Thai family of hot-and-sour salads, so tom yum is literally a boiled dish seasoned like a yam — sour, hot, salty, pungent. Kung means shrimp, the most celebrated version, though tom yum is a template that Thais apply to chicken, fish and seafood generally. It belongs to the river-laced central plains, where freshwater prawns were abundant and where the holy trinity of Thai aromatics — lemongrass, galangal and makrut lime leaf — grows in every market and many backyards. Beyond that, its precise origin is undocumented; it is simply one of those dishes that seems always to have been there, appearing in early Thai cookbooks as an established standard rather than an invention.

There are two recognized styles, and ordering between them is a small identity statement. Tom yum nam sai is the clear version: pure broth, aromatics, chiles, lime — clean, sharp and light. Tom yum nam khon, the creamy version, is a twentieth-century Bangkok development that stirs in nam prik pao (roasted chile jam) and a splash of evaporated milk or coconut milk, producing an orange-tinted, richer soup that has become the default in many restaurants abroad. Purists argue; both are legitimately Thai.

The soup's fame is such that it has escaped the kitchen entirely. When the Asian financial crash of 1997 began with the collapse of the Thai baht, economists nicknamed it the "Tom Yum Goong crisis" — the dish standing in for the country itself. And in 2024, UNESCO inscribed tom yum kung on its list of intangible cultural heritage, citing the soup's roots in the riverside communities of central Thailand. Few bowls of fifteen-minute soup carry that much national weight.

Questions, answered.

What does tom yum actually taste like?

Hot and sour, in that order of fame but the reverse order of arrival: lime sourness hits first, chile heat follows, and fish-sauce saltiness anchors the base, all carried on a broth intensely perfumed with lemongrass, galangal and makrut lime leaf. The clear version is sharp and light; the creamy version adds roasted-chile richness and a rounder body.

Am I supposed to eat the lemongrass and galangal in the bowl?

No — they are left in for aroma and appearance, but lemongrass stalks and galangal slices are woody and unpleasant to chew. In Thailand everyone simply eats around them. Serve the soup as is and tell guests, or lift the aromatics out with tongs before ladling if you prefer a tidier bowl.

What is the difference between clear and creamy tom yum?

Tom yum nam sai is the clear original: broth, aromatics, chiles, lime, shrimp. Tom yum nam khon is a later Bangkok style that adds nam prik pao (roasted chile jam) and a splash of evaporated or coconut milk, making the soup orange, richer and slightly sweet. Both are authentic; the creamy style dominates in restaurants outside Thailand.

Can I make tom yum without galangal and makrut lime leaves?

You can make a decent hot-and-sour shrimp soup with ginger and lime zest standing in, but it will not quite be tom yum — galangal and makrut leaf are the soup's signature perfume. Both freeze beautifully, so one trip to an Asian market stocks you for months; frozen is far better than dried for both.

How spicy is tom yum, and can I tone it down?

As served in Thailand it is assertively hot — several bird's eye chiles per bowl. Heat is easy to control at home: bruise the chiles lightly and leave them whole for moderate heat, slice them for full force, or use one mild red chile for fragrance with barely any fire. The sour-salty backbone works at any heat level.

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