Vegan Curry Noodle Soup

This soup is what you need in this freezing cold weather! It's creamy and slightly spicy and warms you up all the way. Coconut milk, ramen noodles and green curry paste create the perfect comfort food!

I just love soup. Always have, always will. I often make a quick vegetable soup for lunch in winter to warm me up. But my 5 year old prefers noodles in his soup so I came up with this recipe for him. It's still full of vegetables (my preference) but also has noodles (his preference). I didn't add any protein because I prefer it like that but you could totally add some tofu or even chicken if you don't want it to be vegan.

One of the things I love about this kind of soup, is that you can easily adjust the level of spicyness depending on how spicy you like your food. Since I use a curry paste, you can just add more of it if you want it spicier or less if don't. If my 5 year old eats the soup as well (sometimes he's just not hungry at night), I will only add a little bit. And if it's just my husband and me, I add more.

I like using this Thai green curry paste. It's great that it comes in a little pot that you close again so the paste won't dry out. That way you can also add some extra to your plate if you want your dishes extra spicy. That brand sells three different curry pastes – yellow, green and red. Green tends to be the mildest, red the hottest and yellow somewhere in the middle.

The difference between the curry pastes is not only the spicyness, it's also other ingredients. Green curry – which is the most popular one in Thailand – often contains fresh herbs like coriander, lime leafs and basil along with lemongrass, green chilies, fish sauce, garlic, ginger and shallots. Yellow curry often contains turmeric, curry powder, coriander, cumin, lemongrass, galangal, garlic and chilies. So you see, it's not just how spicy one paste is, it's the general taste. I like green curry paste the most for sure! This is a lovely article about the differences.

When making this soup, it's best to prepare all the ingredients before. That way you just have to fry and combine everything and the actual cooking is done quickly. I find chopping vegetables an almost meditative task (unless my 5 year old is nagging me about dinner) so I always start by doing that.

When you're done chopping them, you fry them in a bit of oil after you've fried the curry paste. Frying the curry paste in hot oil (which is called blooming) is an important step but you shouldn't fry it for too long or the spices can burn. Then add broth and tomatoes, simmer for a bit, add ramen noodles and simmer again. Add coconut milk, coriander and the other ingredients still missing and you're done! It's really quite the fast dinner which makes it perfect to cook this dish during the week when we're all busy but still want comfort food!

Will you make this soup soon? Or how about my Slow Cooker Thai Spiced Chicken Soup?