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Thai Yellow Curry Salmon Noodle Soup
When the weather cools down, this Thai Yellow Curry Salmon Noodle Soup is exactly what I want for dinner. Tender salmon, silky rice noodles, and fresh greens are simmered in a fragrant broth made with yellow curry paste, coconut milk, lemongrass, ginger, and lime. It’s rich without being heavy, comforting without being boring, and comes together surprisingly easily. Every spoonful is packed with warming Thai-inspired flavours, making it the perfect soup for chilly evenings when you need a little extra comfort.
Ingredients
- 1//2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1/2 tbsp garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp ginger, minced
- 1 tbsp lemongrass, minced
- 2 tbsp yellow curry paste
- 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
- 200ml coconut milk
- 2 tsp fish sauce
- 2 tsp palm sugar
- Small handful fresh coriander
- Juice of 1/2 lime
- 250-300g salmon fillets, skin removed and cut into large chunks
- 125g vermicelli rice noodles
- 1 bunch Chinese broccoli (gai lan), roughly chopped
To Serve
- Fresh coriander leaves
- Fried shallots
- Lime wedges
Instructions
- Cook the vermicelli according to the packet instructions. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process. Set aside.
- Heat a drizzle of vegetable oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic, ginger, lemongrass, and yellow curry paste. Cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring frequently, until fragrant.
- Pour in the chicken stock and coconut milk. Add the fish sauce, palm sugar, and fresh coriander. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 10 minutes.
- Remove and discard the coriander.
- Add the Chinese broccoli stems and cook for 2 minutes. Add the leafy parts of the Chinese broccoli and the salmon. Simmer gently for 4-5 minutes, or until the salmon is just cooked through and flakes easily.
- Remove from the heat and stir through the lime juice.
- Divide the vermicelli between two serving bowls. Ladle over the hot broth, salmon, and Chinese broccoli.
- Top with fresh coriander leaves, fried shallots, and a wedge of lime before serving.
Notes
- This soup is light, fragrant, and comes together in under 30 minutes. It's proper comfort food without being heavy.
- I use this large saucepan for noodle soups. It's deep enough to hold the broth and wide enough to simmer the salmon without overcrowding.
- Yellow curry paste is milder and sweeter than red or green. Mae Ploy and Maesri are both brilliant brands that you can find in Asian grocery stores or the international aisle of most supermarkets.
- Cooking the fresh coriander in the broth adds a lovely depth of flavour, then you remove it before serving so you're left with just the flavour, not the texture. This is a great trick for people who don't love coriander but want the flavour.
- Adding the Chinese broccoli stems first gives them time to soften before the leafy parts go in. The leaves only need a minute or two, so add them at the same time as the salmon.
- Don't overcook the salmon. It should be just cooked through and still tender. It'll continue to cook slightly in the hot broth, so err on the side of undercooking.
- Rinsing the vermicelli under cold water after cooking stops them from sticking together and clumping in the bowl.
- Palm sugar adds a subtle sweetness that balances the fish sauce. If you can't find it, use a small amount of brown sugar or coconut sugar instead.
- Fried shallots add a brilliant crunch and are worth hunting down. You can find them in most Asian grocery stores, usually in the condiment aisle.
- Leftovers can be stored separately in the fridge for up to 2 days. Keep the noodles and broth in separate containers so the noodles don't absorb all the liquid. Reheat the broth gently on the stovetop and add fresh noodles if possible.
- Not suitable for freezing as the salmon and noodles won't hold up after defrosting.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
2Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 470Total Fat: 28gSaturated Fat: 22gUnsaturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 9mgSodium: 1768mgCarbohydrates: 44gFiber: 2gSugar: 12gProtein: 13g
Please note, this nutrition information is to be used as a guide only. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
Thai Yellow Curry Salmon Noodle Soup
Thai yellow curry salmon noodle soup is exactly the sort of thing I crave when Brisbane decides to remind us that winter does, in fact, exist. It might be bright and sunny outside, but my flat seems determined to hold onto every bit of overnight chill, which means I’ve been reaching for soups at every opportunity. This one combines tender chunks of salmon, silky vermicelli noodles, fragrant yellow curry broth, coconut milk, lemongrass, ginger, and plenty of fresh herbs. It’s warming, comforting, and somehow manages to feel both nourishing and indulgent at the same time. The kind of soup that warms you from the inside out and makes you immediately glad you ignored your original dinner plans.
Inspired by a Soup Conversation
The funny thing is that this soup probably wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t been chatting with a cute boy about soup. As conversations do, ours somehow drifted into listing our top ten favourite soups, and when it was my turn, I realised that most of my answers were essentially variations of East Asian noodle soups. Laksa is usually my comfort soup of choice. It’s rich, fragrant, spicy, and reliably hits the spot every single time.
So when I found myself standing in the Asian aisle at Coles staring at the rows of curry pastes, my original plan quickly disappeared. The salmon sitting in my fridge had been earmarked for a salmon rice bowl with my chilli cucumber salad, which is a meal I absolutely love. But the yellow curry paste kept catching my eye, and the more I thought about it, the more salmon and yellow curry sounded like they belonged together.
Thankfully, my instincts were right. The sweetness of the yellow curry paste works beautifully with salmon, while the coconut milk creates a silky broth that’s rich without becoming heavy. The fish sauce adds depth, the palm sugar rounds everything out, and the lime at the end brightens the whole bowl. It’s one of those recipes that feels as though it came together accidentally but tastes like it was planned all along.
Life, Health, and Cosy Weekends
Otherwise, life continues to plod along in its usual way. Much of my focus lately has been on health and wellness, trying to take better care of myself and make choices that leave me feeling good rather than depleted. It’s not particularly exciting content for a blog post, but it is where much of my energy has been going these days.
The truth is that this blog receives far less thought and effort than it once did. That’s not because I don’t love it anymore. Quite the opposite, really. Cooking remains one of my favourite creative outlets. When work is busy, life is complicated, or my brain simply feels crowded, I find myself returning to the kitchen. Chopping vegetables, stirring a pot, and creating something delicious still feels like one of the simplest ways to reconnect with myself.
As I’m typing this, Lulu has curled himself into the nook of my arm and is purring loudly enough to rival the sound of the heater. He’s perfectly content, I’m eating a bowl of curry noodle soup, and Brisbane’s winter sunshine is streaming through the window. Honestly, life could be a lot worse.
Why This Soup Works
What makes this soup so successful is the balance. Yellow curry paste tends to be milder and sweeter than red curry paste, which allows the flavour of the salmon to shine rather than overpowering it. The broth starts with garlic, ginger, lemongrass, and curry paste gently cooked together before being simmered with stock and coconut milk, creating layers of flavour that taste as though they’ve been developing all day.
The fresh coriander added during the simmer might seem like a small detail, but it’s one of my favourite tricks in this recipe. Rather than leaving it in the finished soup, it infuses the broth before being removed. The result is a subtle herbal flavour that runs through every spoonful without becoming overpowering.
Then come the noodles, salmon, and Chinese broccoli. The vermicelli noodles are light and delicate, soaking up the curry broth beautifully. The salmon cooks directly in the soup, remaining tender and flaky, while the gai lan provides freshness and texture. Finished with lime juice, coriander leaves, fried shallots, and extra lime wedges, every bowl delivers richness, freshness, crunch, and comfort in equal measure.
Ingredient breakdown
Garlic, ginger, and lemongrass
The aromatic trinity that forms the flavour base of the broth. All three go into the pan together with the curry paste at the very start and get a short cook in the oil until fragrant, which blooms their flavour and removes any raw edge before the liquid goes in. Mince everything finely so it disperses evenly through the broth rather than sitting in chunks. Lemongrass in particular needs to be minced quite finely or it stays fibrous and unpleasant to eat.
Yellow curry paste
Two tablespoons of yellow curry paste cooked off with the aromatics before any liquid goes in. Yellow curry paste is milder and slightly sweeter than red or green, with turmeric giving it that warm golden colour that makes the broth look as good as it tastes. Cooking it in the oil for a minute or two before the stock goes in is the step that deepens the flavour considerably and stops the finished broth from tasting raw and flat.
Chicken stock
The primary liquid of the broth and the savoury backbone that everything else builds on. A good quality stock makes a real difference here because the broth is relatively quick-cooked and doesn’t have hours of simmering time to develop depth on its own. The stock needs to carry the flavour of the aromatics and curry paste through the whole bowl.
Coconut milk
Adds creaminess, richness, and a subtle sweetness that balances the fish sauce and lime juice. It also softens the heat of the curry paste and gives the broth that silky, restaurant-quality texture. Full fat coconut milk is the one you want here rather than the light version, which is too thin and watery to make a proper impact.
Fish sauce
A small amount that adds a deep, savoury, umami backbone to the broth that is very hard to replicate with anything else. It sounds intense straight from the bottle but it mellows and integrates completely once it’s in the broth. It’s not there to make the soup taste fishy, it’s there to make everything else taste more of itself.
Brown sugar
Just enough to balance the saltiness of the fish sauce and the acidity of the lime juice without making the broth taste sweet. This is the same balancing act as the pinch of sugar in the Leggo’s copycat sauce, keeping everything in equilibrium so no single flavour dominates.
Fresh coriander
Added to the broth while it simmers to infuse flavour, then removed and discarded before the salmon and vegetables go in. This is a clever technique that extracts the herbal, citrusy flavour of the coriander into the broth itself without leaving wilted herb floating around in the finished bowl. Fresh coriander leaves then go on top at the end as a garnish for a bright, fresh hit of the same flavour.
Lime juice
Stirred through off the heat right at the end, which preserves the bright, fresh acidity and stops it from cooking off into something flat and muted. It lifts the whole broth and ties all the flavours together. Same principle as every other recipe in this collection that uses citrus as a finishing element.
Salmon
Skin removed and cut into large chunks, which gives you substantial pieces that hold together during the gentle simmer rather than breaking down into flakes that disappear into the broth. Salmon needs very little time to cook through, five to seven minutes in a gentle simmer is all it needs, and overcooking it will make it dry and chalky. Watch it closely and pull it off the heat the moment it flakes easily.
Vermicelli rice noodles
Cooked separately according to the packet instructions, then drained and rinsed under cold water to stop the cooking process before they go into the serving bowls. Cooking them directly in the broth would make them absorb too much liquid and turn soft and bloated, so keeping them separate until serving is the right call. They go into the bowl first and the hot broth gets ladled over the top.
Chinese broccoli
Also known as gai lan, Chinese broccoli has thick, firm stems and leafy tops that need slightly different cooking times, which is why the stems go in a couple of minutes before the leaves. The stems need a little longer to become tender while the leaves wilt almost immediately. Roughly chopped so it’s manageable to eat in a bowl of noodle soup.
Fried shallots
Scattered over the top just before serving and doing the same job that crispy shallots do in any South-East Asian noodle bowl, adding a crunchy, savoury contrast to the silky broth and soft noodles. Find them in the Asian foods aisle of most supermarkets in a small tub or bag.
Serve this with
- Fresh coriander leaves and extra lime wedges at the table so everyone can adjust the freshness and acidity to their own taste.
- Extra fish sauce or chilli on the side for anyone who wants more heat or saltiness in their bowl.
- Nothing else, honestly. This is a complete meal in a bowl and it doesn’t need anything alongside it.
