Tom Kha Gai is everyone’s favorite Thai coconut chicken soup. It is one of the most popular Thai recipes. If you have had Thai food, I am sure you have tried this amazing and aromatic chicken soup.
Tom Kha Gai is very easy to make at home. It calls for simple ingredients of chicken, coconut milk, mushrooms. You will also need lemongrass, galangal and Thai chilies to bring out the unique flavors. The cooking process is quite simple and in 20 minutes, you will have a pot of creamy, aromatic, sour, savory and mouthwatering soup.
Galangal is the key ingredient in the recipe as the name literally means galangal chicken. You can buy it fresh or frozen in Asian stores. This Tom Kha Gai recipe is adapted from my favorite Thai cookbook: Thai Cooking Made Easy.
Other Recipes You Might Like
Recipe Pairing Ideas
Spicy Clams in Thai Roasted Chili Paste (Hoy Lai Ped)
Pandan Chicken
Thai Noodle Salad with Shrimp
SUBSCRIBE TO RASA MALAYSIA NEWSLETTER AND GET EASY AND DELICIOUS RECIPES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. If you try my recipe, please use hashtag #rasamalaysia on social media so I can see your creations! Follow me on Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter for new recipes, giveaways and more.
SLT
Hey!
The soup looks really really yummy! I live in the midwest where unfortunately good Thai/Asian food is so hard to come by…so I’ll try this recipe next week. Cannot wait!
Keep the good food recipes coming and congrats on your new site too!
Rasa Malaysia
SLT – thanks for your sweet note. Good luck with the recipe and let me know how it goes.
Rosa
That is one wonderful soup! Refined tasting and so fragrant!
Cheers,
Rosa
Rasa Malaysia
Rosa – agreed!
Miakoda
I went to a Thai restaurant yesterday and was somewhat disappointed with the food- it was barely Thai food at all! But I loved going through the menu, especially seeing all the different soups. And here is a beautiful recipe. What a pleasant coincidence :)
Rasa Malaysia
Mia – Oh no, I never try Thai food in India, but not surprised it’s not authentic. I tried Chinese food in India, too, but it’s different. Hehe.
Candle
I am Thai and this looks very authentic and yummy!!! Happy cooking =)
Rasa Malaysia
Candle – thanks for the comment. Phew, a real Thai and said that it’s very authentic and yummy! :)
joey
This is my favorite Thai soup too :) Yes, even more than tom yum!
Rasa Malaysia
Joey – yeah, Tom Yum is great, but this has a certain appeal that Tom Yum doesn’t have!!
Bren
congrats on your first try at home! fabulous! i’ve never made it but would enjoy it! i loooove coconut soup and just don’t eat Thai out enough!
Rasa Malaysia
Yes, coconut milk is addictive, but it’s actually not that healthy, but who cares, haha.
Sarah Bears
Haha. This is my absolute favorite.
I will sacrifice the calories for this liquid gold
Rasa Malaysia
True. :)
Alta
I’ve never made this at home, although it too is my favorite Thai soup! The place where I usually order it throws little halves of cherry tomatoes in there…only about 2 tomatoes total. Kinda wondering if that’s authentic, but they’re an enjoyable addition, a nice little surprise bite in your soup! I will have to try this at home. Yum.
Rasa Malaysia
Cherry tomatoes, sounds good, I am sure they look cute and colorful in Tom Kha Gai.
zenchef
I love Thai food too and i cried for days when my kaffir lime tree died. :(
I wanna try to make this recipe for my big bossman to see if it gets me a raise. If it does, the extra money will be saved for your 24 courses meal. :) Looks fabulous as always.
Rasa Malaysia
Zen – oh no, your kaffie lime tree died? I would love to have one, too, and also kalamansi tree, curry leaves tree, etc. Good luck getting the raise. :)
nags
ahh one of my faves!
Rasa Malaysia
Nags – definitely!
Christelle
My favorite! i cook it all the time and never tire of it!
Rasa Malaysia
Christelle – I will have to make Tom Kha Gai a lot more now since it’s easy!
paula pacheco
Everything here is good…I also loved the pictures…I like this kind of mix…coconut milk and chicken. It’s great.
Paula
Rasa Malaysia
Paula – thanks for the comment, yes, what’s not to love about Tom Kha Gai?
Rasa Malaysia
Hey Ivy – I know what you mean but I didn’t see any tiny little white bits in the soup from the chicken breast. I think you have to make sure the soup is boiling when you add the chicken breast? I personally don’t like thigh meat.
Jackie at PhamFatale.com
Looks amazing. I love that you added a red chile in the center of the phototograph.
I love using kaffir lime leaves. They are so fragrant. Check my veggie version at http://www.phamfatale.com/id_40/title_Vegetarian-Tom-Yum-Thai-Soup/
Kristen
That soup is sure a thing of beauty. It is one of my kid’s favorite soups. I haven’t made it in ages. I doubt that mine is more authentic than yours, for sure no straw mushrooms in mine (maybe a few shiitakes,) and I usually use fish. Never tried it with chicken. Beautiful Photos!
Thip
This looks delicious, Bee.
Cathy - wheresmydamnanswer
This is my favorite soup for winter!! Is the perfect blend of sweet with that little kick in the end!!
Jules
I have made this soup 3 times and have impressed my friends 3 times. I substitute chicken with prawns sometimes. For more I added 1 or 2 more chillies. Great and easy recipe!
Rasa Malaysia
Jules – glad my Tom Kha Gai recipe works for you. Prawns are great idea. :)
Ktrumpet67
made this today. the Kaffir lime leaves were the most difficult to find, had to go to 3 asian markets to find them. i just tasted the soup as it is simmering…………OMG! i can see why this is my wife’s favorite at “Indocine” restaurant. We will make this again, and again. Thanks for sharing the awesome recipe!
Rasa Malaysia
Thanks for trying this tom kha gai recipe. The kaffir lime leaf is the soul of the dish, without them, it’s just not the same. Great that you found it. :)
Larrie Tarver
I love ordering this soup at Thai restaurants. I have never cooked any kind of Thai food before though. Honestly I have no idea what half of these ingredients are. You can find/buy them in a normal grocery store or do you have to get them at a specialty food store? Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!!
Rasa Malaysia
You can get them in an Asian store, some of the common ingredients can be found at the ethnic section of your typical big chain grocery stores.
Ine
Have to agree: here in Belgium, the kaffir limes are by far the hardest to find as well. Luckily, I found them today in a fresh Tom Yum package, which also contained some chillies and galangal, so that was pretty handy. Was my first time using a lot of the ingredients, including the straw mushrooms (what strange things they are :)), but it worked out really well, it isn’t hard to make at all. I do wonder if I’m just a weakling, or if it’s normal that even with just 2 chillies in there, I still think this soup is really really hot. It’s delicious though, will definitely make it again to build up my tolerance for hot food :)
ni nyoman
I like cooking i want lean more
chris
I love this soup We had it in thailand and never knew how to make it thanx ….
Janice
I always, always order this soup when I go to a Thai restaurant. Then it dawned on me: Why not make this at home? Can’t wait to try this. Thanks so much for sharing!
ANDREW
so yum! i wan la!
jevb1004
I decided to try and learn to cook at home and this was the first dish I ever cooked. Its delicious! Thanks a lot! :)
[email protected] Thailand
This is one of my favorite Thai dishes, as like you said it’s not only tasty it’s easy to make :)
Lovely photos by the way.
Ingrid
Love this soup. Just googled it and found your post! Thanks!
ahmz
Chicken Soup is one of my favorite dishes of all time. it is very tasty and the ingredients are very affordable. thanks for sharing
cherie
HI
Gong Xi Fatt Chai!!!!
I have been following your blog for the past 1 1/2 yr. Although they are many blogs out there but somehow yours is the one that I will go check first for inspiration. Ha ha ha…Your Thai coconut prawn N this soup are my inspiration to cook up something new for my brother in law who just got back from USA.
Keep up the good work… Pretty mummy!
Heaven
20 canned straw mushroom???
Rasa Malaysia
Yes, why not? I love them. You can use half if you like as it doesn’t really affect the flavor.
angustia
20 pieces of canned straw mushrooms, that’s what I think the recipe calls for. :)
hjlowry
I have been following your website for about a year now, since my wife and I went to Malaysia on business. I have made many of the dishes, but hadn’t branched out to this one yet. We made this tonight, and it is amazing. I didn’t quite put the firepower of 8 birds eye chiles in, but other than that followed the recipe exactly. This is better than the Thai restaurant version that we love. Thanks so much!
Rasa Malaysia
Thank you I am so happy that you love my recipe and that it tastes better than the restaurant. :)
shareena
I will make this tonight..though I don’t have straw mushrooms.. can I use normal mushrooms instead?
Rasa Malaysia
Yes, you can.
shareena
oh I love it!!! simply delicious! Thank you for sharing this with us!
Tutu
I now live near Washington DC and used to live in Hawaii where they have authentic Thai cuisine.
All the recipes I see on the internet are runny.
The Thai soup that I love best is thicker and is wonderful served over sticky rice. It has almost a stew like sauce to it.
What do you recommend that I use to thicken it?
Thank you,
Tutu
S. Raney
Title: Very Easy To Make
My kind of cooking is usually throwing in a frozen pizza. However, I love Thai food so much and wanted to save money on going to a restaurant all the time that I was inspired to try this recipe. I have to say, even being an EXTREMELY amateur cook, it was VERY EASY to make.
The hardest part was finding the ingredients (more specifically the Kaffir Lime Leaves). I live in Phoenix, AZ and went to two Asian food restaurants (Asianas & Lee Lee’s) but I could not find lime leaves. At Lee Lee’s two store employees gave me some dried leaves they said were lime leaves called Wood Skin. Anyone ever heard of them? They seemed to work fine.
The coconut milk visually curdled a little bit (I think because I simmered it too long waiting for my husband to get home), but it didn’t change the taste. My husband said that the taste of the broth was perfect =) What a compliment. Thank you for this wonderful recipe!
Justin L
I’m in Phoenix, too, and shop at Asiana all the time. I’ve only been to Lee Lee a few times.
I know for a fact that both stores carry kaffir lime leaves. You’ll find them in the produce section, usually wrapped in a white styrofoam sleeve with cellophane wrap. This is one ingredient where fresh definitely trumps dried…
n
I had been craving this soup for ages and it did not fail me. Wonderful, easy receipe.
Siobhán
Tom kha gai has been my favourite soup since the first time I ordered it in a Thai restaurant and I can’t even consider any other starter now. Seeing as I’d like to have it much more often than I eat out, I googled recipes and this came up at the top of the list. I used the recipe today and it turned out perfectly! As another person said, the hardest part by far was finding the ingredients. (I live in Dublin and had to go to one Asian shop for the kaffir lime leaves and another for the galangal.)
Thank you so much. :-)
Rasa Malaysia
Thanks Siobhan.
TheDoughboy
In Thailand, do they make this soup With or Without chicken stock/broth? Other tom kha gai recipes I have tried always called for some stock in it. Just wondering. Looks good though! Ron
Rob
How many does this recipe serve?
Rasa Malaysia
2-3.
suz
I had a wonderful dish that was chicken breast cooked in a heavy coconut sauce. not a soup do you know what it might have been. the place went out of business before i could go back and try to taste what was in it. It was wonderful.
Zain Jeewanjee
I love Tum Ka Ga Soup, its the best ever, i dont cook at all, but some 12 years ago i picked up a recipe book from Bangkok and tried the soup at home while my wife was traveling,, if you get the ingredient then its pretty easy. Soup is a hit with any one at all, there is a special rice that I make with the soup stolen from a Bohra Dish my mother used to make. Together the two are a tremendous meal. I can send you the recipe for the rice if you want. Zain Jeewanjee
Jerry Ewing
This heavenly, and so easy. The asian market owner suggested I add:
2 tbsp of Thai Chili Paste for medium heat and to give it that orange tint, and
2 tbsp of coconut palm sugar (substitute is brown sugar)
My first try at Asian cooking. Oh wow! Thank you for the recipe!
Jerry in Orlando
Frank Leopold
Agree on the palm sugar, tasted the soup when cooking an immediately thought “palm sugar!” as well as a bit more fish sauce. Gives it a bit more kick… :-)
Thanks for the recipe and thanks for that very handy list of essential Thai cooking ingredients, that was an eye opener.
Rosa
Scrumptious looking! That is a dish I really love. Heavenly…
Cheers,
Rosa
Rasa Malaysia
Thanks Rosa.
Edwin Smith
Talking about Thai or Chinese food not tasting the same in India, I was born in Bandung, Indonesia and recently took a bucket-list vacation to Bali after many, many years. I was shocked how different the food on Bali tasted from what I grew up with, which was mainly Javanese/Malaysian food.
lalitaji
I love this soup! Thank you for the recipe!
I would like to suggest that you format the picture smaller for printing. It is a small recipe, but the banner and picture took over 50% of the page, only allowing the ingredients on the first page. And the method using 25% of the second page.
Bea you have a wonderful site, keep up the great work!
Rasa Malaysia
Thanks for your suggestion but the ads shouldn’t print out. Most readers requested to have the picture on the recipe page because they wanted to have a reference of how the dish looks.
Maitri Fischer
Wow photonya bagus sekali. Just so happen to have all the ingredients – making it now! looks great.
Ron
Tom yum khaa, it tastes just like it sounds. Whether you’re snuggled up on a cold winters night, or heating it up in that filthy lunchroom microwave, it will take your mind to the coconut filled beaches of Thailand. The sweet yet tangy aromatic flavours startle the likes of those who are not accustomed to this South East Asian cuisine. Maybe its the enoki mushrooms and cherry tomatoes floating graciously in the creamy coconut milk, or is it the spicy fragrances hurling towards my pallet .I take my first sip, not expecting the ambush of flavors that was to come. Sweet and sour overwhelms my senses and I am left with the common after burn that accompanies a Thai dish. My taste buds scream for more, ignoring the need for a freshly pored glass of cold water. As it warms my belly, I cant help but imagine the sites and sounds of that coconut filled beach, the waves crashing, the sun rays beaming down on my back, and even that old man frying fish on the side of the road. Despite the subzero temperatures and the snow covered evergreens that currently surround me, this dish seemingly transforms into a piece of Thai culture that I can forever take with me.
Sue von Baeyer
powdered glangal is available at Penzy’s Spices.
So is powdered lemongrass.
Makes thai cooking much easier!!
Monica
sometimes I put a bit of green curry (like half a teaspoon) that has been fried with a bit of coconut milk. This adds a depth of flavor that I LOVE. Also, I boil the ingredients with bone-in chicken leg or thigh (breast meat is too dry) which adds flavor to it. Also, at the tail end of the cooking, I throw in some shrimp, because YUM shrimp!! But now that the weather has turned…yum!!!
Rasa Malaysia
Thanks for the great tip Monica I will have to try it the next time when I make Tom Kha Gai. :)
C. Brown
I cheat quite a bit when I make tom kha gai. I use Pacific Foods Tom Yum base, then add more fish sauce, lime juice, and – gasp! – ginger paste. Plus, I do put in a small piece of palm sugar as well as at least a few (or more) teaspoons of nam prik pao. I also use oyster mushrooms instead of straw.
In response to someone who thought the soup was too thin, you can do a couple things. Mind you, these are experimental (mostly), but should work. 1: add a bit of rice flour to some nam prik pao (or chili oil), stir into soup prior to putting in coconut milk, and simmer ’til it’s to the thickness you want; 2: add coconut cream instead of coconut milk; or 3. let the soup simmer for awhile ’til some of the broth has evaporated. [This one I have done – by accident. But good results!] To do the latter, though, if you’ve already added the coconut milk, make sure it’s on the lowest possible setting and make sure to gently stir every so once in awhile; this may take some time, especially if you’ve already added coconut milk/cream. You might also want to try a combination of these things if one alone doesn’t work. Good luck!
Melanie
I just made this and followed your recipe almost to a tee. It turned out fantastic! I don’t typically cook so when I do, I must follow a recipe. I love your website! Made your hot and sour soup also. My husband commented that it looked so authentic. Anyway, I used lemon instead of lime for the Thai coconut soup because that’s all I had. But all the other ingredients are key: kaffir lime leaves (found fresh ones in local Asian grocery store), galangal (found a frozen bag in my local Asian grocery store also) and lemongrass (I cheated on this one, used the one in a bottle, that’s all I could find). I just wanted to let you know that you made a cook out of me! If there was a photo attachment option here, I would include my amateur attempt of making this delicious soup.
Rasa Malaysia
Hi Melanie, that’s so good to hear that you had success with my recipes. I am so happy. :)
Sandra
If I cannot find galangal, can I use Tom yum soup base? I checked th label and found it contained several of the soup ingredients.
Rasa Malaysia
Yes you can.
Ma Recipes
I love this soup! A Loi Mak Mak! I prefer this recipe with fresh mushroom – oyster mushroom and enoki mushroom! haha
Thanks for sharing, Ai.
Lita
Your blog is impressive and Tom Kha Gai looks so delicious and authentic. We are Thai Direct (www.thaidirect.co), the authentic Thai meal kit company, delivering fresh authentic Thai ingredients with easy recipes to cook authentic Thai meals at home. Check us out when have a chance. Thanks!
Aisha
Hi, just to share some tips to those who lives in places where kaffir lime leaves are hard to get or prefer to use only fresh ingredients (dried kaffir lime leaves are sometime sold in bulk, and I hate to buy things in bulk if I rarely use them!). You can just use the zest of one lime which you are going to squeeze the juice into the soup later. Works just the same!
Rhys
Tried this recipe tonight for dinner and hubby loves it! Love the how easy and simple this recipe is, yet the soup is so rich and flavorful – sour, salty, spicy… really hit the spot on cold night. Thanks!