So, I actually made this Hot and Sour Soup last week, but got so busy with Thanksgiving madness that I didn’t have a chance to post it until today. But that’s okay, I figure you might need this recipe now, when you’re stuffed to the brim and maybe looking for something a little on the lighter side.
What is Hot and Sour Soup?
You may recognize hot and sour soup from your neighborhood Chinese take out menu. It’s a really flavorful soup with a tangy broth that isn’t too heavy or thick. I added some cubed tofu to the broth to give my soup a little more substance, then ladled it all over a bowl full of colorful vegetables. This is one of those awesome dishes that is not only really delicious, but you feel awesome about eating it because you just know it’s full of all sorts of “good for you” things. I love that.
What Makes Hot and Sour Soup Sour?
The sourness of the hot and sour soup comes from vinegar. The sour flavor helps keep this soup light, even though hot soup usually sits heavy on the stomach. It’s also a nice contrast to the spicy red chile sauce.
Serving Options
There are two options for serving this soup. Ladle the hot broth over the vegetables and let them slightly wilt from the heat, or stir the vegetables right into the pot of hot broth and let them cook until tender. The first option (ladling broth over vegetables) makes the best presentation, but if you’re not into slightly crisp, only lightly blanched vegetables, you might not like this option as much.
Cooking the vegetables in the broth makes them softer, but you will lose some of the vibrant color. And, as I found, while the soup sits in your fridge, the pretty purple from the cabbage bleeds out into the broth and then up into the tofu. It’s really kind of funny looking to see violet tofu cubes in your soup, but I promise the flavor is not compromised. :)
Easy Hot and Sour Soup with Vegetables and Tofu
Servings 6Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp canola oil ($0.04)
- 1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger ($0.11)
- 4 green onions ($0.50)
- 1/4 red cabbage ($0.50)
- 3 carrots ( $0.26)
- 8 oz. button mushrooms ($1.99)
- 6 cups vegetable broth ($0.75)
- 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce (or more to taste) ($0.05)
- 1.5-2 Tbsp rice vinegar ( $0.19)
- 1 Tbsp chili garlic sauce or sambal olek ( $0.34)
- 14 oz. block extra firm tofu ($1.99)
Instructions
- Thinly slice the cabbage, mushrooms, and the green onions (both the green and white ends of the onions). Peel the carrots, then either slice them thinly, use a vegetable peeler to slice them into ribbons, or cut them into thin sticks (julienne).
- Add the canola oil, grated ginger, and the sliced white ends of the green onion to a large pot. Sauté the ginger and onion over medium heat until soft (1-2 minutes). Add the vegetable broth to the pot, along with the soy sauce, vinegar, and chili garlic sauce. The amount of soy sauce, vinegar, and chili garlic sauce needed may be subjective and will depend on how much salt your vegetable broth contains. Start with a smaller amount of each, then add more to your taste. The final broth should be tangy and spicy. Heat the broth until piping hot.
- Drain the tofu, then cut it into small cubes (small enough to fit on a spoon). Add the tofu to the hot broth, and allow it to heat through ( a few minutes).
- Either add the sliced vegetables to the soup pot and cook until softened, or divide the vegetables into individual bowls for serving, then spoon the hot broth over top. Sprinkle the sliced green portion of the green onions over each bow. More chili garlic sauce can also be added to each bowl if desired.
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Nutrition
Scroll down to see the step by step photos!
How to Make Hot and Sour Soup – Step by Step Photos
Begin by prepping all of the vegetables. I used 1/4 head red cabbage (STILL trying to use up that cabbage weeks later!), an 8oz. container of button mushrooms, about 4 green onions, and a few carrots.
Thinly slice the cabbage, mushrooms, and green onions (you’ll be using both the green and white ends of the green onions at different points, so keep them separated). You can either cut the carrots into very thin sticks (julienne), or use a vegetable peeler to make thin ribbons (or hey, use a spiralizer!).
Grate about 1 Tbsp of fresh ginger, as well. I keep this little knob of ginger in my freezer and it really does make it SO much easier to grate. No stringy stuff clogging up the grater! :D
Add the white portion of the sliced green onions and the grated ginger to a large soup pot along with 1 Tbsp canola oil. Sauté the onion and ginger over medium heat until soft (about one or two minutes).
Add six cups of vegetable broth. I use Better Than Bouillon concentrate to make my broth. 1 tsp BTB + 1 cup water = 1 cup broth.
To the broth you’ll want to add about 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce (depending on how salty your broth already is), and 1.5 to 2 Tbsp of rice vinegar. Rice vinegar has a very mild flavor, but still has that nice tangy-sour effect. I like mine pretty sour, so I added 2 Tbsp of vinegar, but if you’re unsure, start with a smaller amount and add more until you get the broth where you like it.
For the hot component of the “hot and sour” broth, I used 1 Tbsp chili garlic sauce. You could also use sambal olek or even sriracha. If you don’t want your soup spicy at all, just leave it out.
Once you have the broth hot and sour to your liking, let it heat through until it’s piping hot.
Take one 14oz. block of extra firm tofu and drain the liquid from the package.
Cut the tofu into small cubes. You want the cubes small enough to fit on a soup spoon. I ended up making the rest of my cubes a bit smaller than the cubes shown above.
Finally, add the tofu cubes to the hot broth and let them warm through. They’ll absorb some of that super flavorful broth and get nice and tasty. At this point, you can add all of your sliced vegetables to the pot and let them get nice and tender, or…
Divide the sliced vegetables into individual bowls, and…
Pour the hot broth right over the thinly sliced vegetables. The hot broth will soften the vegetables just a bit, leaving you with a very fresh and tasty soup.
Sprinkle a few of the sliced green onions over top and add more chili garlic sauce if you like it super hot!
Or, just add all the vegetable to the pot and let them cook a little. Cooked red cabbage does lose it’s nice vibrant color, so just keep in mind that it won’t be quite as pretty this way (but still just as delicious!).
If you find you have more sliced vegetables than you can use in the soup, switch it up one night and make them into a quick stir fry! Or, add them into your Dragon Noodles. :)
Thank you so much for this recipe! This soup has been a godsend. I made a big batch of it twice this month (and considering I’m cooking for one, you can tell that I liked it a lot!) This broth is the perfect replacement for ramen and other Asian noodle soups that I can’t eat due to gluten intolerance. It’s salty and just spicy enough to get your nose running, and very simple to make while still being packed full of flavor.
I made some tweaks to the original recipe – I used powdered broth instead, and just used whichever veggies I could find at the store – baby bok choy, mushrooms, and carrots. I’ve also experimented with adding in a poached egg (wonderful) and some rice noodles (I get the kind that come in small square portions).
When all is said and done, I have a cheap, fast, flavorful, and much healthier alternative to the packaged ramen that I crave. WELL DONE!
I wanted to try a hot and sour soup with some veggies in it for a little more nutrition, and since Beth makes the best EVERYTHING, I decided to give this one a go.
I’ve made hot and sour soup from scratch before based on a recipe from some other site, and Beth, I love ya…. But your recipe didn’t QUITE have the bite and spice I was used to in my hot and sour soup. I had to tweak it a bit to get the zing and runny nose effect I’m used to. :-)
I think perhaps it was the use of the rice vinegar? As you said, it is a little milder, so especially only using 2 Tbsp of it was not sour enough at all for me. I ended up adding significantly more, along with quite a bit more soy sauce. To up the spice factor, I poured in a ton of sambal olek, as well as a liberal sprinkling of ground white pepper (careful – this stuff will take your breath away!)
Cabbage is crazy delicious, but it doesn’t agree with my digestive system. Last time I ate it, I was writhing in pain for 2 days. Sooooooo, I took a note from Beth’s book and substituted whatever other veggie sounded good! (That’s the great thing about soups – just about any veggie will taste delicious!) So I used collard greens instead.
Overall still a great recipe – just had to do a little tweaking with the flavoring for my taste. :-)
I made this last night and it was amazing! I’m not a big mushroom fan, so I subbed out a can of bamboo shoots that I sliced up thin. I served it along side some vegetable potstickers for dinner. I’m looking forward to leftovers for lunch!
I love how healthy this soup is. It was a nice, light reprieve after all the huge holiday meals. It seemed maybe too light, though (the recipe as directed I estimated to be only 130 calories per serving), so I added a second package of tofu. Along with some rice, this made a great dinner. Definitely making this again!
You can also try adding an egg. Most hot and sour soups have an egg in the broth, like egg drop soup. :)
Made this a few nights ago. Great recipe! It was even better with an egg swirled into it at the very end.
Made this last night and it was delicious! I added garlic to saute with the ginger and green onions, and used more rice vinegar. I also pressed the tofu for a few minutes before slicing to make sure each piece would stay intact. Yet another winning recipe from your site!
Delicious! I think next time I’ll dry fry the tofu before adding it to the broth.
Freezing the ginger is such a great tip! I just tried it today and it was so efficient.I also don’t use ginger much, so it’s good to know it can be frozen.
Holy monkeys! This soup was delicious! The broth was yum and warming. All together it was light, quick, easy and inexpensive! I made some mods.. I don’t enjoy mushrooms so I subbed in bok choi. I sauteed the tofu in sesame chili oil to crisp the edges for texture & flavor before adding it to the broth and also topped the soup with some chopped salted roasted peanuts. This is going into the regular rotation. Thanks so much!
What do you like to have with this? seems like I would be hungry.
Ugh, Beth, OK. I’ve followed your blog for a while now (~4 years). I’ve cooked and re-cooked many of your creations (personal favorites: butter chicken, dragon noodles, chicken & lime soup, coconut curry vegetables, creamy spinach & tomato pasta, Indian-style creamed spinach, sesame chicken… the list goes on and on and on). I’ve never felt compelled to comment on any of your recipes before now… but seriously, this soup right here is the TRUTH. I love every single ingredient involved. My roommate was grilling me for specific recipe details after he smelled it bubbling on the stove. It’s magnificent and perfect and I’m completely in love. Thank you again for another wonderful kitchen experience.
Ooh, I should have looked at the step-by-step instructions first! I just printed off the recipe and I ended up sauteing ALL the onion slices instead of just the white portion! It was still super delicious, though.
Oh, and forgot to rate!
This looks so good–can’t wait to make it!
Here is a silly question. When you store your ginger in the freezer, do you wrap it, keep it in a container of some sorts, or just throw it in the freezer as is?
It’s not a silly question! :) I wrap it tightly in a fold top sandwich bag, then place that into a tighter sealing freezer bag. The fold top bag adds an extra layer of protection and is easier to remove/replace every time I use the ginger than actual plastic wrap would be.
Thanks so much!
This looks so good and fresh; a great antidote to heavy holiday food or for fighting off a cold. And, I have a tofu factory in my neighborhood. But, how can I duplicate the chili garlic sauce myself? Just want to avoid the sweetener.
You should be able to find some chili garlic sauce without sugar in it. While sriracha definitely has sugar, these plain chili garlic sauces don’t. You could also google recipes for “sambal”, “sambal olek”, or just see what you can find for “chili garlic sauce/paste”. I’m sure they’re pretty simple. :)
I LOVE Hot and Sour Soup!! This soup would taste delicious with some cooked shrimp!!! :-)