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Mmm, pho! My favourite food in the whole entire world. Nothing like a hot bowl of pho soup on a long and tiring day. I could eat bowl and bowl of it and it wouldn’t even leave a dent!
Traditional pho is super time-consuming as the best broths need to be boiling for a MINIMUM of 10 hours. Luckily, when you don’t have the time to make it traditional or need to save a few bucks instead of ordering out every week, you can easily make a quick batch and store it in the freezer for up to a month and fridge for up to a week!
The seasonings for the pho soup broth are so rich and unique. When you get a craving for pho, there really isn’t any way to navigate around this! You NEED a delicious bowl of pho to satisfy your cravings.
My favourite pho broth is made with beef bones but there is always a vegetarian/vegan version and or chicken. I’ve never had a pho broth made from seafood! I’ll have to try that next time.
Have you ever had pho before? I’d love to know if you’ve had this delicious soup in the past!
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I don’t know about you but I travel for food! I love travelling to different places and having traditional dishes although I have to admit, my stomach doesn’t always handle it haha!
A huge dream of mine is to travel to Vietnam and have authentic pho and other Vietnamese cuisines. I’m hoping to do a gorgeous Asia trip within the next few years.
My parents were born and raised in the Philippines. So, when I was a child, every time I’d travel there, I’d have really amazing authentic Filipino dishes and there is nothing like it! It’s super fun being able to try out so many food items that are native to the place! My mom and dad are both from different parts of the Philippines so it was cool having things that were specifically from their places.
Is there somewhere you’d love to travel to just to try the food?! Where is it?
This Easy Chicken Pho recipe is accompanied by a YouTube Tutorial. If you haven’t subscribed to my channel on YouTube, don’t forget to!
HERE IS HOW TO MAKE EASY CHICKEN PHO:
WHERE CAN I FIND THESE INGREDIENTS?
This super easy chicken pho requires a lot of spices and seasonings! Most of the ingredients, you’ll be able to get from your local grocery store and if you can’t find things there, your best bet is going to an Asian grocery store and they’ll for sure have what you need.
WHAT ARE THE INGREDIENTS?
The ingredients in this super easy chicken pho recipe are:
- 1/2 Gallon of Water
- 1 lb of chicken bones
- Half yellow onion
- 6 cloves of garlic
- 6 ginger strips (thin 2×2 slices)
- 5 Star Anise
- 2 Cinnamon Sticks
- 1 tsp of coriander seeds
- 1 tsp peppercorns
- 1/2 tsp of cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 cardamom pods
- 1 beef bouillon cube
- Half a lemon
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp sugar
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
WHAT EQUIPMENT DO I NEED?
Since this recipe calls for a lot of ingredients, you’ll also need a lot of cooking equipment. I usually measure with my heart but if you want to be more exact, you will need to get measuring spoons and cups. You’ll need a cutting board to chop everything up as well as a soup ladle. You’ll need a huge pot for this as well as a strainer to strain the broth out.
WHAT ARE THE STEPS TO PREPARE?
To make this easy chicken pho soup, you’ll need to:
- Prepare all the ingredients and ensure that you have all the spices. I recommend having the spices and not skipping one as it will alter the flavour.
- Measure what you need to like the fish sauce, sugar, coriander seeds, peppercorns, and cloves.
- Slice the onion, garlic, ginger, lemon, and chicken/chicken bones.
- Boil the pot of water and put all the ingredients in. Wait til the water is at a rolling boil before adding the chicken in as unlike beef bones, chicken bones get soft a lot faster.
- Strain the broth once you’ve let the ingredients boil/simmer for minimally half an hour to an hour.
- Serve with cooked rice noodles, chicken pieces, bean sprouts, lime, jalapenos, hoisin sauce and sriracha!
CAN I SUB ANYTHING OUT?
I made this super easy chicken pho recipe using chicken bones but you can most definitely use beef bones or vegetable broth using vegetable scraps. Unless you’re allergic or hate one of the seasonings, you should keep the ingredients as is! Without the spice mix, it won’t taste like pho!
WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE?
I’d say the two main ingredients that come out of this dish are cinnamon and star anise. It’s a rich unique flavoured broth and really doesn’t taste like anything I could describe. Pho is a very distinct broth because the spices are a specific combination. Pho also has a very citrusy taste from the lemon.
HOW LONG DOES IT KEEP FOR?
The great thing about this pho is that it keeps for a while! It is just broth after all and you boil your noodles at the time you eat them. If you’ve made a huge batch, you store half of it in an airtight plastic container in the freezer for at most, a month and a half, and the other half in the fridge to enjoy later on in the week.
WHAT GOES WITH THIS EASY CHICKEN PHO?
For this chicken pho recipe, you can have it with:
- Rice Noodles (most popular way)
- Bok Choy or Cabbage
- Ramen or Udon Noodles
- Just as is – drink the pho broth by itself
- With a Vietnamese Sub or Fried Rolls on the side!
WHAT ARE OTHER VARIATIONS OF EASY CHICKEN PHO?
You can make a bunch of different variations of pho! Some include:
MORE CHICKEN SOUP RECIPES?
Since this easy chicken pho recipe is from Vietnam, I thought I would share some of my other favourite Asian chicken soup recipes:
INSPIRATIONS FOR THIS DISH?
Honestly, in general, whenever I eat out of having a dish outside my home, I always think, “Wow, imagine if I make this at home”. I admit that sometimes it’s just too much work and buying the dish is a lot easier but I’m very passionate about cooking so being able to make something from scratch is something that makes me very proud!
After moving out of my parent’s house, I was able to cook more dishes by myself so I started trying my favourite foods! Pho is one of them was the most work but so rewarding! I’ve made this for family and they’ve argued over who can take the leftover broth home!
HOW CAN I MEAL PREP THIS RECIPE?
This recipe is a bit hard to meal prep as you can’t necessarily prepare everything ahead of time for this soup dish and expect it to last a while! The rice noodles will end up being soggy and you can’t really leave a lot of meat in there as it changes the texture dramatically.
If you did want to meal prep this dish, the dish before you have it for lunch, you’ll need to prepare 3 different containers. 1) For the broth 2) for the cooked noodles 3) any meat, bean sprouts, sauces and toppings to put on top!
A medium/large container will work to store the broth/noodles and a small container will work to store the protein and toppings!
ANY OTHER NOTES?
No notes for this one! All I can say is that it is amazing and rewarding to make even if it feels like it takes forever or that there’s a lot of dishes! You may want to leave your noodles in the broth because it’s too much storage and at the end of the night, you want to take the easy way out but DON’T!! It sadly ruins the pho and spoils really quickly.
You can, as my Youtube tutorial above shows, the bones of a rotisserie chicken that you either roasted yourself or bought from the grocery store!
Easy Chicken Pho
Ingredients
- 1/2 Gallon Water
- 1 Lb Chicken Bones
- 1/2 Medium Yellow Onion
- 6 Cloves Garlic
- 6 Thin Slices Ginger about 2×2 thin slices
- 5 Star Anise
- 2 Cinnamon Sticks
- 1 Tsp Coriander Seeds
- 1 Tsp Peppercorns
- 1/2 Tsp Cloves
- 2 Bay Leaves
- 4 Cardamom Pods
- 1 Beef Bouillon Cube
- 1/2 Lemon
- 1 Tbsp Fish Sauce
- 1 Tbsp Sugar
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
Instructions
- On a stovetop on medium-high heat, add in your water to a large soup pot.
- Gather all your ingredients and put everything in! This include th chicken bones, onion, garlic, ginger, spices, seasonings, and sauces.
- Let all your ingredients simmer/boil for about 30 minutes to 1 hour.
- Prepare any toppings or contents you want to eat alongside the broth.
- Add in any salt/pepper to taste! Then strain the soup into a container or another pot or strain directly into the bowl that you'll be eating from.
- Assemble your bowl together, serve and enjoy!
I hope you enjoyed this Easy Chicken Pho recipe! I’ll be sharing a beef pho and shrimp pho in the new year as well!
I cannot stress this enough but again, it may seem like a lot of work and spices but it is so so worth it! Once you’ve mastered this, you can serve it as the main course at a dinner you’re hosting or to family and friends and they will be so impressed!
Let me know if you’d try out this recipe below!
Xo,
Lynn
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Sydney says
Pho is SO yummy! This recipe looks sooo yummy. I am so interested in trying this!
xoxo,
Sydney
http://www.thelotuslist.blogspot.com
Lynn Mumbing Mejia says
Pho is my fav! Thank you for commenting, Sydney x
Lovely recipe, I didn’t know this dish ? thanks for sharing ?
Thanks so much for stopping by! xx
I’ve been craving pho all week and I’m so glad I came across this post! Thank you so much for the recipe! I’ve tried making pho at home before but never got the spices right. I love having pho with spring rolls, it’s the best. Thanks again!
Totally! Pho spices are tricky. Thank you for reading xx
I personally don’t think I have ever had pho before. I would love to try it out as this dish looks amazing and delicious.
Thanks so much for reading xx
I have never really tried a pho before, but I must say this looks super tempting! Thanks for sharing!
xoxo
Lovely
http://www.mynameislovely.com
Thanks so much! It is delicious x
I’ve never had Pho before but from the picture it looks a bit like ramen? I’d love to try this though, sounds absolutely delicious. Perfect meal for winter! x
Yes! The feel of the meal is definitely closer to ramen. It is the perfect meal for winter! Thank you for reading, Jenny x
YUMM! Looks so good!! I will definitely try this out on the weekend x
http://adventuresinmay.blogspot.com
Thank you so much! xx
Totally admitting that I never tried Pho no matter the times I had heard of it, but only from the pictures I am totally craving it! Sounds like something we need to try ASAP! x
It is my fav food in the whole wide world!! Thank you for reading, Cristina xx
I haven’t had Pho for years! This one sounds yummy from the looks itself 😀 Pinned this for later x
Pho is my fav!! Thank you for reading x
I have never tried Pho, but this sounds totally amazing! Maybe I will make this for dinner this week. The pictures have me drooling and your recipe sounds delicious!
Aw, thanks so much! It’s my fav food for sure! xx