Thai recipes
13 viral Thai dishes — clear, structured, and quick to cook.
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Pad krapow — salteado tailandés de cerdo con albahaca sagrada
Bangkok street stir-fry in five minutes: pounded chili and garlic, minced pork tossed with fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and a final fistful of holy basil. Served over rice with a runny-yolk fried egg.
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Pad thai — fideos de arroz salteados
Thailand's most famous noodle dish: rice noodles tossed in a sweet-sour-salty tamarind sauce with shrimp, tofu, egg, and chives, finished with crushed peanuts, bean sprouts, and a hard squeeze of lime. Five minutes of frantic wok work.
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Tom yum goong — sopa tailandesa de gambas
Thailand's iconic hot-and-sour soup: a fragrant broth of lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime, and chili, brightened with lime and fish sauce, full of plump shrimp and mushrooms. Ready in twenty minutes.
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Curry verde tailandés — kaeng khiao wan
Thailand's fragrant 'sweet green curry': a green chilli-and-herb paste fried in cracked coconut cream until the oil splits and the kitchen smells of kaffir lime, then simmered with chicken, Thai aubergines and basil. Creamy, aromatic and gently fiery — built on the balance of salty fish sauce, sweet palm sugar and lime-leaf perfume.
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Khao Soi — sopa de fideos al curry del norte de Tailandia
Chiang Mai's signature bowl: silky egg noodles in a rich, golden coconut-curry broth, topped with a tangle of crisp fried noodles and tender chicken. You finish it yourself with lime, shallot, pickled mustard greens and chilli — a glorious play of creamy and crunchy, rich and sharp, with Burmese roots and northern Thai soul.
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Curry massaman — curry tailandés suave y especiado
Thailand's rich, mild 'royal' curry, often voted one of the world's most delicious dishes: tender beef (or chicken) and potatoes simmered in coconut milk with a fragrant massaman paste carrying the warm spices of the spice routes — cardamom, cinnamon, star anise, cloves — plus roasted peanuts, tamarind and palm sugar. Gentle on heat, deep on flavour, a little sweet and sour.
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Tom yum goong — sopa tailandesa agripicante de gambas
Thailand's most famous soup: a fragrant, fiery, sour broth alive with lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaf and chilli, studded with plump shrimp and mushrooms, balanced with fish sauce and lime. Tom yum goong walks the Thai tightrope of hot, sour, salty and a touch of sweet — clear-broth or creamy with a spoon of chilli paste and evaporated milk. Bright, aromatic and ready in 20 minutes.
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Arroz glutinoso con mango — postre tailandés de coco y mango
Thailand's most beloved dessert: warm, plump glutinous rice steamed and soaked in sweet, salty coconut cream, served alongside ripe golden mango and finished with a drizzle of thick coconut sauce and a sprinkle of toasted mung beans or sesame. Khao niao mamuang is the taste of Thai mango season — simple, fragrant and addictive, balancing sweet fruit against rich, faintly salty coconut rice.
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Som tam — ensalada tailandesa de papaya verde
The fiery, addictive salad of Thailand's northeast: shreds of crisp green papaya pounded in a clay mortar with garlic, chillies, lime, fish sauce and palm sugar, plus tomatoes, long beans and a handful of peanuts. Som tam is hot, sour, salty and sweet all at once, with a bruised-not-blended texture that only a mortar and pestle gives. Made to order and eaten with sticky rice, it's the taste of a Thai street stall.
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Pad see ew — fideos de arroz anchos salteados tailandeses
Thailand's smoky stir-fried noodle: wide, flat rice noodles tossed over fierce heat with dark soy sauce, egg, garlic and Chinese broccoli (gai lan) until the edges char and the noodles take on the prized 'wok hei' smokiness. Pad see ew is everyday street-food comfort — savoury, a little sweet, less famous abroad than pad thai but adored at home. The secret is a screaming-hot wok, working fast, and not stirring too much so the noodles catch and char.
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Tom kha gai — sopa tailandesa de pollo y coco
The gentler, creamy cousin of tom yum: a fragrant Thai soup of chicken and mushrooms in a silky coconut-milk broth, perfumed with galangal (kha), lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf, and balanced with fish sauce and lime. Tom kha gai is soothing and aromatic rather than fiery — the coconut mellows the heat — with the same bright hot-sour-salty edge underneath. Comforting, quick and luxurious, it's a Thai restaurant favourite that's easy to make at home.
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Larb — ensalada tailandesa-lao de carne picada y hierbas
The bright, punchy minced-meat salad of Laos and northeastern Thailand (Isan): cooked minced pork, chicken or beef tossed while warm with lime juice, fish sauce, chilli, sliced shallots, masses of fresh herbs (mint, coriander, sawtooth) and — the signature — khao khua, toasted ground sticky rice that adds a nutty crunch and binds the dressing. Larb is hot, sour, salty and herbaceous all at once, served at room temperature with sticky rice and raw vegetables to cool the heat. It's fresh, fast and addictive — one of the defining tastes of Isan and Lao cooking.
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Pollo con albahaca tailandesa (Pad Krapow Gai)
Pad krapow gai is Thailand's beloved street-stall stir-fry: hand-chopped chicken seared hard in a screaming-hot wok with pounded garlic and bird's eye chilies, glossed with a salty-sweet sauce, and finished with a huge handful of holy basil. Chopping thighs by hand instead of using pre-ground meat gives you craggy, uneven pieces that catch the sauce, and adding the basil off the heat keeps its peppery, anise-like perfume intact. Spooned over jasmine rice with a crispy fried egg, dinner is on the table in under half an hour.
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