Vietnamese-Style Chicken Curry Soup

This was sooo good. I'm Vietnamese and I've been craving my mom's curry ever since I've moved away from home. Needless to say, this was just like Mom's [don't tell her I said that]! Some additions and substitutions I made to the recipe: instead of lime leaves, I used fresh basil - makes all the difference. No stalks of lemon grass, but I did have chopped lemon grass, added about a tablespoon. For the reviewer who wondered why he/she couldn't eat the lemongrass - that's because stalks are not supposed to be eaten. It's there for flavoring, just like the bay leaf. When chopped finely, the lemon grass isn't as hardy as you chew all the other goodness. Also added a little bit more red peper flakes for an extra kick. Everything turned out so great that I brought some in to work for a buddy and he loved it also. Thanks, Billy!

In Vietnam people don't put bell pepper (or so called sweet pepper or Da Lat papper in Vietnamese), carrot and ginger in the curry. However, you can customize the dish and add many vegetable as you want but this will make it look more like the curry dishes of other countries.

this is awesome!!!!!!!!!! I do cut back on the red pepper flakes (like 1/2 tsp.)...the fish sauce smells awful in the bottle, but doesn't make the soup taste fishy at all...the cilantro is a perfect touch at the end. Excellent reheated the next couple of days too. 3-23-07 update...don't substitute LIGHT coconut milk for the regular....yuck....makes it too thin!

I put this in the slow cooker with chicken breasts. I simmered the sauce ingredients with the onion and chicken all day, then about 1 1/2 hours before serving I added the vegetables (except the potatoes, left them out entirely). I added a couple basil leaves to the broth, and used lemon zest instead of lemon grass because that is what I had on hand. This soup was fantastic, my husband and I loved it!!

This was great! Very flavorful and a tad bit spicy. I'm Vietnamese and it was about as good as my mom's. However, I did make some changes to make it more like hers. I didn't have lemon grass stalk so I took another user's suggestion and used 1 tbsp of minced lemon grass. I left out the green bell pepper, lime leaves, bay leaf and cilantro. I did however added sweet potatoes like my mom. By the way, you are going to need a HUGE pot. I had to use two 6qt stockpot to accommodate everything.

Great soup! I used 2 potato and 1 rutabaga. The store I shop at did not have lime leaves, still wonderful.

WOW! This soup is excellent! The fresh ginger, lime leaves and lemon grass really compliment the curry and give it that "South East Asia" flavor. It is a lot of work chopping everything up, but if you don't, you'll never get to experience the pure wonder and joy of fresh curry. I went overboard and threw on a handful of fresh bean sprouts as a garnish. This recipe has become my new and final favorite.

DELICIOUS! I loove my family's vietnamese chicken curry and this tastes exactly like how my mom makes! I added a little dash of salt and it brought out the flavors more. i also added sriracha to spice it up. it was perfect! i ate it with french bread. YUMMY! i can't wait to make this again.

Wonderful! I doubled the vegetables and coconut milk and took out the water, which made for a thicker soup/stew. I also cooked it for about an hour and a half to make sure the potatoes were soft. It went great with the recommended french bread!

I didn't have lemon grass, shallots, lime leaves, or cilantro, and this still came out amazing! I also skipped the coconut milk and green bell pepper -- I added extra carrot. I did have a good curry powder (S&B Oriental) and a good broth. I thicken it with a little corn starch so it sticks to rice and/or bread. The fish sauce makes this especially yummy.

Excellent, tasty, spicy! Found kaffir lime leaves at a local asian grocery. The hardest part of this recipe was deboning/skinning the whole chicken. I'll likely buy chicken pieces next time. I was also a bit confused as to why this appeared under World Cuisine, Canada, Toronto.

This soup was delicious. Finding the ingredients in the store was the hardest part, but it really was worth the effort to have something a little different! I made it with tofu instead of chicken and it worked great.

This recipe is a mind blower! The balance of flavors is what strikes you at first spoonfull. Only change I made was from 2 down to a half teaspoon of red pepper flakes. My family can't wait to have it again. Allrecipes is without a doubt the best recipe vault on the web.

I made this with "easy naan" and it was an awesome & easy side to this flavorful soup. Although that means I inappropriately mixed Indian bread with Vietnamese style soup - naan is often eaten with curries and I think they are delish together. The lady at the Asian food store told me that lime leaves are tough to find anywhere in the country right now because of the Korean economy, but this soup was fine without them.

This was an excellent recipe and I had all the ingredients in my house! A few changes: used chicken bouillion and water because I didn't have chicken broth/stock. Did half a pound of pork stir fry strips and boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which I sauteed first before cooking chunked onion. Omitted fish sauce and added only 2.5 tbsp curry powder (again, that's all I had). For some spice, I added half a tbsp chili flake and close to a tbsp of Rooster sauce (garlic chili sauce). Also omitted bell pepper, as truly Vietnamese mother never added such a thing to her curry soup. Simmered everything for about an hour or so and served over rice and shredded Napa cabbage. Delish! Okay, just about made my own recipe, but it turned out very nicely with this as a base. Thank you!

too spicy but really good. next time i will add just 1 teaspoon of pepper flakes

Ahhhh, Cari! It ain't moms recipe but it's purdy darn good! Thanks!

Recipe is almost like momma's...Quick tips: I usually don't have time so I use chicken breasts instead of whole chicken and red curry paste instead of the powder. I am curious about what other veggies people put in their pot. We use: Potatoes, carrots, onions, eggplants, green peas or fresh snap beans. Lemongrass is a must!!!!!

Very yummy! My husband, who is Vietnamese, liked it too. It was missing a little something, but I think it was because I used Gram Marsala curry powder.

Excellent recipe. I'd make the following mods: use two instead of one lemon grass; light-flour( with salt, some pepper and garlic powder) the chicken before frying it -- put one Tbs salt, two Tbs flour in a bag with chicken and shake it to get some coating veil; put fried chicken in boiling water to seal flavor -- skim off scums at boil, And then later add chicken broth.

The flavor of this soup is really good. I used all of the ingredients in the recipe, except for the lime leaves. I don't know about the lemon grass. I bought two stalks, cut them into small pieces, and it was like little pieces of straw floating around in the soup. They were inedible. What did I do wrong? Other than that, the soup was pretty good.

I made this 2 nights ago..and it's the 3rd time making it! Very flavorful!

This soup is astounding. Creamy and spicy. Just right!

Served this to my bookclub gals. They loved it. I made it up a day ahead and the vegetables were a little bit softer than I would like but the flavors were outstanding.

Absolutely delicious!

I made this for my boyfriend who had been missing this soup since he left home...the first bite he took was worth all the effort it took to find the ingredients! He LOVED it and said it was exactly right (although I looked at it and wondered if it was suppose to be that color - rest assured, it is!). I didn't have a few of the ingredients, fresh ginger root, lemon grass, etc. and it still turned out great. Thanks for the recipe, we will be using it again!

I cannot say enough good things about this recipe. It was simple, flavorful, filling! My friend and I ate the WHOLE batch in one sitting, except for a bowlful we were too stuffed to eat.. which turned into a pea-soup consistency the next day, and was even spicier. I thought it excelled the next day, however I'm not sure a batch will ever make it that long in my house. No lime leaves to be found here, but the flavor depth sure did not suffer. For more stewy consistency, just cook the potatoes longer, don't worry about decreasing the liquids.

This soup was so tasty. It was mad hot though...so I will cut the hot ingredients in half next time. Also, I made it with half of the liquid, and it was still more soupy than stewey.

This came out awesome! I will take one member's advice & cut the water & broth in half. I think I would rather have it just a little thicker next time. Although it was perfect as is. No lime/bay leaf is fine.

Very good!! I mostly made it as is, except for I didn't add the quart of water and I couldn't find the kaffir lime leaves. It did taste like something was missing, but maybe it was the kaffir lime leaves.

This recipe was awfully labor intensive... It seems a lot easier just to cook the chicken straight in the broth and cut the time in half. It was good though.

We made this a vegetarian recipe by substituting tofu for the chicken, and by using a vegetarian substitute for fish sauce. It was yummy!

This was absolutely divine! I followed the recipe exactly (except for using light coconut milk) and it was perfect. When I have this at a Vietnamese restaurant, it's always served with French bread, which tastes great dipped in the broth.

I made a few changes; left out the bell pepper and used ginger and lemon grass paste instead of fresh (just as good and available) Also used 7 skinless chicken thighs instead of whole chicken and didn't have any bayleaf. I spooned the soup over a side of sticky rice..this dish is very close to the wonderful soup I used to order at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant

I used basil leaves instead of kaffir lime leaves as suggested by one reviewer. Also halved the spices and still found it quite hot. It's yummy though so I think I would tweak it a bit more next time. Probably would put the bell peppers later than specified as they came out overcooked.

I wanted to love it. I really did. I thought the flavor was really bland. Even with all the yummy ingredients, it just needed more flavor. Also, the red chili flakes were wayyyy too much. Thank you to whomever submitted this-even though I personally didn't like it, it appears that some people do.

Very nice recipe:) Thanks for sharing:)

I did the stew version. Considering all the ingredients, the taste was too mild for our liking.

This was alright. I was expecting a lot more flavor with all of the ingredients. Just a fancy/spicy chicken soup. Makes a lot too!

This is by far the best thing I've made all year!! Bill, yer the bomb! I didn't find any lime leaves, and I used 3 chicken breasts left over from a slow cooker chicken curry recipe. I didn't have any onions so I used about 1/8 c. of minced onion. I used the Madras curry.(which is nothing like Garam Marasala, an indian blend of spice) Thanks so much for sharing.

I added Hot chilis for spice as well as red bell pepper. It was so good...I almost wanted to kick all the flavor a up a bit but was still an awesome dish!!!

too spicy but really good. next time i will add just 1 teaspoon of pepper flakes