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This was so delicious! Thank you for the recipe!! I mostly followed it and added fun toppings and we all loved iT! Can’t wait for leftovers tomorrow! Thanks again!!
Julia
Watch How To Make Our Coconut Curry Soup
This Coconut Curry Soup Is Wonderfully Mindless.
Well, well, well. Soak it all up, friends –> the glory that is this rainbow veg bowl of coconut curry soup which is turning my face into a permanent heart eyes emoji. 😍😍😍😍😍
Yesterday, when it was Sunday and I couldn’t think more than Weekend Thoughts, I drafted this post with this very non-descript name, thinking I would change it when I went to publish it because surely I’d get some more professional inspiration when the clock struck Monday morning.
But my professionally inspired brain is, how can I say this… taking a break? and I guess I’m actually officially going to call this the Anything-You-Have Coconut Curry Soup. 🙆 Are we all okay with that?
Here are my thoughts. You come home from work, you’ve had a long day, you’re Hungry with a capital H. You want to make one of the bajillion recipes from your Pinterest board, but you don’t have more than half of the ingredients for any of them. Driving to the grocery store is a distant dream at this point. I mean, really. AS IF.
Enter: the most beautiful vegetarian/vegan coconut curry soup bowl that really only requires two things from you at its most basic level: CURRY paste or powder of some sort, and COCONUT MILK.
It’s simple. It’s delicious. It’s all I want to eat for dinner right now.
How To Make This Recipe
1
Prep and Press Tofu.
Press your tofu to get all the water out. I love to use this tofu press (affiliate link), but you can also wrap it in a towel or paper towels, and stack something heavy on top.
2
Make the Soup Base.
Delicious aromatics (onion, garlic, ginger), curry paste (could be red or green paste), potatoes, and a good amount of creamy coconut milk. Blended until silky-smooth!
3
Chop Your Vegetables.
My favorites: cilantro, carrot noodles, and purple cabbage. Thinly sliced, please!
4
Fry Tofu and Finish.
Fry up your pressed tofu until browned and crispy, and top in in your bowl of soup with the other veggies. YUM.
Veggies In This Soup
There are vegetable in the soup base itself, as well as topped on the finished bowl. I like to use potatoes in the soup base to get it thick and creamy, but you could really simmer any vegetables in the base (sweet potatoes, eggplant, carrots, butternut squash) before blending to make this a nutritious powerhouse.
Then after the soup base is finished, you can think about your veggie toppings! Here are some ideas:
- Carrots
- Purple Cabbage
- Mushrooms
- Asparagus
- Kale
- Bell Peppers
- Broccoli
- Zucchini
- Snap Peas
- Bean Sprouts
The options are limitless! I just love this recipe so much for that.
How To Press Tofu
Okay, we need to discuss the magic that is a tofu press.
Really, how I came to be a person who owns a tofu press is a bit of a long story.
But in general it goes like this: I like to cook and eat meatless recipes, and I like to buy random gadgets on Amazon. Therefore, TOFU PRESS. (affiliate link) The end.
While you make the soup, the handy little press will squeeze out all the water from the tofu all on its own – and there is no need for you to mess around with a whole entire roll of paper towels or get tofu water all over the place. EASY.
Getting all that water out helps reduce the tofu-mush-factor. Then, when you cook it, it will get golden brown and crispy on the outside and you’ll love it.
If you don’t have a tofu press (and don’t want to get one) you can always press your tofu by wrapping it in a thick layer of paper towel and setting something heavy on top – like a heavy pot, or a stack of books.
Questions and Variations On This Soup Recipe
Yes, chicken would work! I’d probably shred some cooked chicken (maybe from a rotisserie chicken for ease?) and add that in after you’ve blended the soup base.
I could see chickpeas being great here (similar to this curry recipe!).
Yep! It’s anything you have – red, green, or yellow curry paste all work great in this soup.
Fresh herbs (cilantro, green onion, basil), a drizzle of fish sauce and/or sesame oil, a few squeezes of sriracha or chili crisp, or a little pour of soy sauce.
OMG YES! I love that idea. Adding rice noodles sounds fantastic, or a scoop of hot steamy rice underneath it all too.
Anything-You-Have Coconut Curry Soup
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Yield: 8 servings (about 1 cup soup + lots of tofu and toppings per serving) 1x
Description
Coconut Curry Soup – this easy recipe can be made with almost ANY vegetables you have on hand! Silky-smooth and full of flavor. Vegetarian and vegan!
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 knob of ginger, peeled and grated
- 1–2 tablespoons red curry paste
- 1–2 tablespoons turmeric
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 12 baby yukon potatoes
- 2 14–ounce cans coconut milk
- 3 cups vegetable broth
- 24 ounces extra-firm tofu
- anything you have for fresh veggie toppings! see notes
Instructions
- PREP: Start smushing the tofu in that nifty TOFU PRESS. It’s amazing. (Or rig up some kind of system to press the water out of the tofu while you prepare the soup.)
- SIMMER SOUP: Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and ginger, and stir fry for a few minutes until fragrant. Don’t let the garlic burn or brown. Add the curry paste, turmeric, salt, and sugar. Stir fry for another few minutes. Add the potatoes, coconut milk, and broth. Simmer until the potatoes are soft.
- BLEND SOUP: Allow to cool slightly (I can never wait very long…) then transfer to a blender and puree until smooth and silky. The soup should be rich and thick so that it coats the back of a spoon. Add in more water or broth (I think I ended up adding about 2-3 cups) to thin out the soup as needed.
- FRY TOFU: Remove the tofu from the press and cut into small pieces. In the same pot, heat a little more oil and add the tofu, stir frying until light golden brown. Pour in a small amount of the pureed soup – it will sizzle and pop, and it will also give the tofu the most wonderful color and caramelized exterior. Remove from heat with the tofu is deep golden brown and crispy.
- TOP AND SERVE: Top each serving of soup with fresh veggie toppings and crispy caramelized tofu and enjoy your luscious salad-meets-soup combo.
Notes
Toppings: green onions, cilantro, basil, red or green cabbage, asparagus, baby kale, carrots, zucchini shreds, bell peppers, mushrooms, spinach, broccoli, snap peas, bean sprouts… ANYTHING YOU HAVE.
(There is a short list of things that don’t sound like they would be awesome in this recipe, like tomatoes… and… I can’t think of any more, so that might be all. Use your best curry judgement.)
Regular or light coconut milk will work! Nutrition info is for light coconut milk. But regular is so, so good.
In place of potatoes, you could also use sweet potatoes, carrots, or eggplant.
I’ve also done this with green curry paste and it’s still great.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Thai-Inspired
Keywords: coconut curry soup, curry soup, tofu soup
More Amazing Coconut Curry Recipes
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our easy weeknight dinners page. Check it out!
Anything-You-Have Coconut Curry Soup was such a delicious supper last night, I’m making it again today. Thank you for this amazing recipe. I wish I could give it more than a five.
Delicious!
I added cannellini beans to the base and less potatoes for more protein.
Hello,
Thank you for this recipe. I used to make it years ago and was in love with this! I am trying to break a spell where I make the same tomato coconut lentil curry each week and happen to have 12 tiny potatoes on hand. It’s delicious with sweet potatoes. It does come out very thick but the broth can be frozen and used, again with “whatever you have” at a later date. I forgot about this – I think I called it a salad soup!
Your recipes are amazing.
Thank you!
Robin
Has anyone put potstickers/dumplings in this?? Hoping to tonight just curious if that sounds reasonable 😂
This coconut curry soup recipe looks absolutely delicious! I love how versatile it is – I can’t wait to try adding my favorite veggies. The flavors seem so comforting and perfect for a cozy evening in. Thank you for sharing!
I made this recipe and poured the soup over rice and added my toppings and it was amazing! I also boiled the potatoes separately and once they were cooked I added them to the blender with coconut milk and a spicy pepper. Then I sautéed everything on the stove just as you did, and poured my coconut and potato purée in the pot and let it all simmer! This turned out sooooooo good! Thanks for sharing!
Wish the broth would have had more flavor and I even added the maximum amount of turmeric and red curry paste. I had one can of lite coconut milk and one regular. Very bland – I will add even more curry with the leftovers.
Fantastic Recipe! Don’t skip on the fresh ginger. I substituted powdered in once and it was not good. Instead of potatoes and blending, I add a can of pumpkin which thickens this soup right up and lightens the carbs some and adds a nice flavor. It’s definitely not very traditional, but it works great.
This recipe, although I haven’t tried as yet, sounds really versatile. Have you tried freezing just the liquid base ‘soup’? If it works and potato doesn’t get ‘grainy’, I would surely have a stash in my freezer for future easier meals.
We haven’t tried that yet, but if you give it a go, we’d love to hear!
I did it with green curry paste, light coconut milk, chicken stock cubes and various vegetables, including potatoes. Lovely Thai meets thick country style soup. The parsnips, carrots, and onions made it sweet—I didn’t add sugar.
I used up my vegetables, had a special meal, and I almost hit a 10 from my wife (I didn’t cut the ginger up fine enough…)
Thank
Thanks so much, Lindsay!
I like this recipe. I wouldn’t suggest following this recipe exactly as written. Skip the blend process and the potatoes. That is not Thai style cooking. You bloom the aromatics in oil and then cook down chicken broth. Add the coconut milk. Cook down 15 min. Add sliced chicken breast and hard veggies like squash and roots. cook another 10 minutes. Add soft veggies like bell pepper and broccoli. Cook another 5 minutes. Take off heat. Add coconut sugar, salt and lime/lemon juice until desired acidity, sweetness and salinity has been achieved. Your soup WILL be bland at the end. You make it taste good with more salt, sugar, and acid.
hello! how long does this soup keep for in the fridge?
This should keep for 3-5 days!
This is a very good basic recipe for coconut soup however there’s way too much turmeric and it overwhelms every other taste. I kept adding more coconut and broth to try and tone it down. I brought it to my Mom in hospital because the food there is so atrocious and she loved it.
I have totally used this recipe as a base, but I love to do pumpkin or butternut squash as the base of this soup instead of potatoes.
I have cooked the pumpkin or squash separately, and usually in the crock pot. I will saute the aromatics with the curry paste, and put that in the crock pot too.
I feel like this is one of those recipes that works well for veggie lovers as well as meat eaters. My picky brother was looking at what I made this morning, although a lot of it was not quite assembled at that point.
I had to sub (a lot!) but your recipe gave me confidence to go for it! Sautéed my aromatics, sweet potato chunks, coconut milk, but I had to use powdered bullion broth, powdered curry powder, a pinch of garam masala, and turmeric. I was a little worried it was going to end up “weird” since I was out of curry paste, but the smell after it had been cooking for a while told me otherwise! Blended it up into a thick creamy spiced broth that already had my mouth watering. Added literally whatever I had on hand. A can of corn, a bunch of green onion to balance the sweetness of the corn and sweet potato, fresh spinach leaves, and my fried tofu pieces, and some Thai basil. Splash of fish sauce and sriracha. Boy was I surprised by what a masterpiece I ended up with! I had such a long day and my nauseous pregnant tummy made me end up waiting way too long to cook anything. This soup felt like a warm hug. And it packed such a flavorful rich comforting punch. I can’t believe how fast and easy it was. I am sitting here soooo happy right now. This is absolutely going to be a new go-to.
Great recipe —I have just one suggestion — do NOT add sugar — unless you like sugary sweet soup. For me, the coconut milk was probably sweet enough and I really wish I had not added sugar. If you want to test it out you can add it at the very end after you taste it first. Thank you!
Great tip!
My husband just became diabetic recently and this is something we love. Do you have anything that can replace the potatoes.
You could try cauliflower or squash!
So yummy. I am a food bank shopper so all of my food scraps will need to go somewhere. Thanks for this recipe, it came out delicious. I used TONS of day old veggies for this amazing salad soup.
I used my instant pot with 5 smaller cut sweet potatoes as the base for the “creamy” part.
I baked my tofu and left it unseasoned.
Basil is so good on it! Yummy with chili flakes.
You’re a good cook!
I made this with left over carrot/sweet potato pulp from juicing, green cabbage, onions, celery, baby spinach, green peppers and I substituted sugar with maple syrup. I cooked brown and wild rice and blended the two once both were done. Yummmmmmy!!!
Great recipe! I had some coconut milk and Thai green curry paste left over so was glad to read in the notes that it would work great too. I loved that I could use any veggies, so replaced some of the potatoes with a beet and a bunch of veggies I had in the fridge(eggplant, leek, spinach) like it said in the notes.
Instead of blending everything, I blended half because I like a bite to my soup. Verrry forgiving and great recipe! Topped with coriander, avocado and the tofu. Will definitely be making this in the future!
10/10 recommend!
Is it possible to freeze the soup base?
We haven’t tried freezing the soup base, but we think it would work. If you give it a try, we’d love to hear back!
I did not do the blending step (just left the carries and potatoes in the broth) and subed the tofu for chicken and put it over egg noodles. My 10 and 8 year old kids loved it!
Yay! So happy to hear this was a hit with the family, Roxanne!
I really want to make this but I don’t have potatoes and I don’t know when I can grocery shop again (trying to as little as possible).
Do you think I could use chickpeas to thicken it?
We haven’t tried that before to know how it’ll work. Let us know if you end up giving it a shot though!
I was going to do it – I’ve thickened other soups with white beans – but I chickened out. I just halved the coconut milk and broth instead. Added 8oz mushrooms, 16 oz tofu, 2 tbsp curry paste, all the seasonings as on the recipe, cilantro, and a squeeze of lime juice. It was fabulous. Thanks!
Yay! So glad you enjoyed the soup, Alli!
Made this with butternut squash and leftover roasted garlic, and it’s like a mix of winter squash soup and curry, which is surprising and nice.
Glad you enjoyed the soup, Rachel!
Don’t have potatoes in house. Could I use sweet potatoes instead? And if so, since they are all different sizes, what would you add measurementt-wise (cups?) Thank you and be safe.
Hi, Susie! Sweet potatoes could work here. We’d suggest maybe 2-3 large sweet potatoes cut up. Let us know how this goes for you!