Thai Curry Soup

This is one of my all-time favorite soups, from the now-defunct website The Daily Muse. It’s healthy, only takes a few minutes to make, and is perfect for a wintertime WFH lunch. At this point I usually make the soup from memory, which means it’s evolved over time from the original recipe below. Last time, I forgot about the curry entirely (as well as the soy sauce and sugar) and added turmeric instead. I also used a frozen ginger cube instead of the ground ginger. It was fantastic! So this is a very forgiving soup open to interpretation, your personal taste, and what you have on hand. I suddenly realized I’d never posted the original recipe here and wanted to do so ASAP, because the only other place it lives now is on a recipe card.

Ingredients:
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 large carrot, diced
2 handfuls fresh spinach or chard
1 clove garlic, minced
1-3 tsp red curry paste
½ can coconut milk
1 box (32 oz.) chicken or vegetable broth
1 tsp curry powder
½ tsp ground ginger
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
4 oz. rice noodles
1-2 Tbsp lime juice
Pinch of red pepper flakes

Directions:

Sauté onion and carrot in a little olive oil until tender. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Add red curry paste and mix until evenly distributed. Add broth, coconut milk, curry powder, ginger, soy sauce, red pepper flakes, and brown sugar. Stir for a minute, then add spinach or chard.

Simmer until greens are cooked down, then add noodles and cook according to package directions. Note: if you cook too long, your end result will be more like pad Thai than soup.

Add lime juice to taste before serving and garnish as you wish. Ideas: chopped cashews or peanuts, cilantro, diced green onions. Makes 2-4 servings, depending on how hungry you are.