Thai Inspired Coconut Soup for Health and Healing
This soup is probably not even close to authentic Thai, but it is delicious, filling, healthy, and healing.
It’s got ALL the things a person needs, and like ALL my recipes, this is just a guide. I have included masses of veggies to optimize phytonutrients, but please just use what you have in your house. This is low stress cooking my friend.
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Ingredients
1 TBSP coconut oil
6 carrots, sliced on a diagonal.
3 celery stalks, sliced on a diagonal.
1 large onion, chopped.
1- 2 inch chunk of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped.
2 or 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped.
1 inch chunk of fresh turmeric, or 1 tsp dried.
Gently saute these first ingredients over medium heat until onions start to soften and everything is melting together nicely. Stirring often so garlic, ginger, and turmeric don’t burn. Then add:
1 small sweet potato, chopped into bite sized pieces.
1 - 2 cups cubed butternut squash.
(You don’t need to use both, or either of these if you don’t want to. You do you!)
Stir to combine, and add…
8 cups chicken bone broth, stock of your choice, or in a pinch water.
8 kaffir lime leaves, dried or fresh.
Bring to a simmer and cook until carrots, squash, and sweet potatoes are close to desired tenderness. About 20 minutes. Then add:
1 small zucchini sliced in half lengthwise, and then on a diagonal.
1 - 2 cups broccoli florets, bite size.
1 cup peas, fresh or frozen, shell or no shell.
A good handful green beans, cut into bite sized pieces.
Bok Choy chopped into spoon-up-able size.
Let these ingredients cook until desired doneness, about 5-10 minutes or so. Reduce heat to low and add:
2 cans full fat coconut milk (If using coconut milk without guar gum or other binders I like to use my handheld immersion blender for a few seconds to get the coconut milk to really blend into that nice smooth texture).
3 TBSP coconut Aminos
Juice from 1/2 a lime
Salt and Pepper to taste
If you’re going plant based with this soup, you are now finished!
You don’t want to overheat the coconut milk so try not to let the soup boil at this point. Serve it with the cilantro and a lime wedge for that splash of acid right at the end. This makes the flavours really shine and everything come together.
fresh Cilantro, finely chopped for sprinkling on at serving time.
Fresh lime wedges for serving with soup.
PROTEIN OPTIONS
About 2 cups of large prawns, shells removed and roughly chopped. From frozen is great but be sure to defrost them first and then rinse really well, making sure prawns are nice and clean.
The prawns are my FAVORITE because they add a good umami depth to the soup. I can’t get good quality (sugar free) fish sauce locally, but if you can you could use a splash of that in the soup as well.
2 Chicken breasts, cooked and slices. (Any shredded chicken works really well in this soup).
Salmon that has been gently poached in coconut milk, reserve the poaching liquid for the soup! Once salmon fillet has been cooked to desired doneness, remove it from the liquid, carefully remove the skin and break into bite sized pieces. Add the coconut milk and the salmon chunks to the soup.
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Instructions
Well, the instructions are included in the recipe, so follow those roughly and you will be set for the week.
Please remember that this is just a guide, and to just use the veggies you have! It also makes a very large pot of soup, so if you’re cooking solo perhaps you will want to half this recipe, OR freeze it in desired serving size portions.
I do want to highlight the diversity of veggies and colours in this recipe because that’s part of the magic here. One pot with a good rainbow of ingredients equals an array of phytonutrients, and that equals a happy gut. And a happy gut equals a healthy you!
Feel free to add in red, green, and/or yellow peppers, as well as some fresh and finely sliced hot peppers! We are generally nightshade free so you won’t find them in my recipes often.
The other good thing going here is the inclusion of fat from the coconut milk. I know this goes against some people’s idea of healthy — but for me having a good amount of healthy fat in my meal keeps me full for longer and gives me good energy. Soup doesn’t always keep me satisfied for hours on end, but this one does! That is the role of good healthy fat in our diet, along with feeding our mitochondria! (Which is part of the magic that happens in our body that turns FOOD into ENERGY).
If you’re doing the AIP diet this is a great recipe to have on hand because the flavours naturally go very well together, so you won’t feel like you’re missing out.
Adding in things like ginger, turmeric, bone broth, and buckets of veggies really makes this soup a powerhouse of healing.
Final Thoughts
I made this for my friend Rach when she was having a hard week and needed something extra nourishing to get her through. Her family loved it so much she wanted the recipe, so here it is! Roughly.
Soup is a funny thing to make a recipe for, because it always ends up a bit different each time I make it! I hope you experiment and come up with your own beautiful version, and I hope you love it as much as we do.
If you do, please let me know! I love hearing from you.
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When I was a girl living on Read Island BC, we would often run into George the Prawn Man on our way home from who knows where in our little dent and ding boat. He would cheerfully flag us down and hand us over a big sack full of freshly caught prawns. LIke sunshine in a bag.
He would inevitably have some strange treasure to show us that had come up with his traps. Maybe a small octopus that we would set free, or an old kettle that had somehow ended up inside the interkit workings of a prawn trap, strange bottom of the sea weeds growing out of it’s spout. Or maybe a rubber boot full of mysterious creatures that we would watch entranced as they swam around in the shadow of the black boot. We would gently lower that boot back into the water, and watch it sink into the darkness. I would imagine the creatures staying in the safety of their boot bus until they landed back on the floor, and off they would go, back to their bottom of the ocean business.
It’s funny to look back on these memories; because for him I’m sure it was nothing, a simple act of generosity. A moment of entertainment in his busy day. Perhaps a few bucks shared out of his haul.
But to me it was laughter and joy at the table as we celebrated our good fortune, with prawn juice running down to our elbows. it was a glimpse into the mystery of the sea, and an act of generosity, and kindness that gave us the best meal we would have all week.
I will never forget that.
Small acts of kindness can really shape someone’s life in ways we will never know. Things we hardly even notice doing.
Thank you George The Prawn Man, I wish you knew how your generosity shaped my heart and my love of food.
Xox,
Gwen
