Making Shrimp Pho at home is a lot easier to make than you think! This recipe is ready in under 30 minutes and features flavorful spiced broth, steamed shrimp, bok choy, rice noodles and fresh cilantro!
Love soup? Then you must try my Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup and Slow Cooker Turkey Chili!
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Easy Shrimp Pho
There is nothing like a steaming bowl of soup on a cold day, especially one that is loaded with shrimp and a flavorful broth.
I simplified this shrimp pho recipe to make it in 30 minute for an easy weeknight dinner. This soup is extremely simple to make. (And it looks a lot more intimidating than it is!)
Typically Pho is made at the table with the ingredients placed on top of the broth. I like to make mine up ahead of time, and place the cooked noodles in the bottom of the bowl.This homemade Shrimp Pho soup is warm and comforting, light yet filling. Best of all, it’s simple and flavorful!
HOW TO PRONOUNCE “PHO”
Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a traditional Vietnamese soup made of noodles, thinly sliced beef, and beef stock. I made a twist on the original and used chicken broth and shrimp instead of beef.
Pho can be made a number of different ways. Feel free to try this with beef, tofu, chicken, or pork!
Ingredients
You only need a few pantry staples and some fresh produce to make your own Vietnamese-style shrimp pho at home!
- Rice Noodles: You can use either thin or wide rice noodles. If you can’t find them at your local grocery store you can always use spaghetti instead.
- Neutral cooking oil: I used canola oil to bloom the spices and saute the ginger and garlic.
- Spices: I add both star anise and a cinnamon sticks and bloom them in oil to enhance the flavor of the spices.
- Ginger: Minced ginger is sautéed along with the garlic. I
- Garlic Cloves: I used 4 cloves of garlic! Feel free to use more or less depending on your taste!
- Jalapeño: I slice up 1 whole jalapeño and add half of it to the broth and reserve the other half for garnish! Feel free to use more to amp up the spice level.
- Chicken Broth: Make your own, or opt for low-sodium so you can better control the amount of salt and savory flavors of the soup.
- Fish Sauce: These pack in a ton of flavor in small amounts, be careful not to overdo it.
- Soy sauce: I like to use low sodium soy sauce since the fish sauce and the chicken broth can be a bit salty.
- Bok choy: I use 2-3 heads of chopped up bok choy. You could use whatever veggies you have on hand mushrooms and bean sprouts would also be good in this!
- Lemon Grass: I used 1 stalk of lemon grass in the broth. You could also use the lemon grass paste as well.
- Shrimp: Save your shrimp shells! For extra flavor I like to simmer the shrimp shells in the broth. If have deshelled shrimp you can skip this step!
- Lime Juice and Cilantro: These serve as garnishes and really compliment the shrimp and light broth.
How to make Shrimp Pho
- Cook rice noodles according to package instructions. Drain and set aside.
- Add oil to a large pot over medium high heat. Add the star anise and cinnamon stick to a large pot. Toast the spices for 2 minutes or until they start to become fragrant.
- Stir in the ginger and garlic and saute for 2 minutes or until the garlic starts to brown slightly.
- Pour in chicken stock, fish sauce, soy sauce, lemongrass, half of the sliced jalapeno and the shrimp shells (if using).Bring to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes to allow the flavor to develop.
- Strain out the spices and the shells using a metal sieve.
- Place the pot back on the stock and stir in the bok choy and shrimp.Cook for about 2 minutes or until the shrimp turns a light pink and plumps up.
- Take off of the heat and stir in the ime juice, and cilantro.
- Divide the noodles among the 4 bowls and pour the soup on top.
More Soup Recipes To Try
- Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup
- Slow Cooker Turkey Chili
- Italian Meatball Soup
- Stuffed Pepper Soup
- Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup
Spicy Shrimp Pho
Ingredients
- 8 ounces rice noodles, uncooked
- 1 tbsp oil
- 3 star anise
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tsp ginger, minced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 6 cups low sodium chicken broth
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
- 1 stalks lemon grass
- 1 jalapeno, sliced and divided
- 12 ounces large shrimp, peeled and deveined (save the shells!)
- 2-3 leaves bok choy, chopped
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 2 tbsp cilantro, plus more for serving, chopped
Optional
- 1 cup button mushrooms, thinly sliced
Instructions
- Cook rice noodles according to package instructions. Drain and set aside.
- Add oil to a large pot over medium high heat.Add the star anise and cinnamon stick to a large pot. Toast the spices for 2 minutes or until they start to become fragrant.
- Stir in the ginger and garlic and saute for 2 minutes or until the garlic starts to brown slightly.
- Pour in chicken stock, fish sauce, soy sauce, lemongrass, half of the sliced jalapeno and the shrimp shells (if using).Bring to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes to allow the flavor to develop.
- Strain out the spices and the shells using a metal sieve.
- Place the pot back on the stock and stir in the bok choy and shrimp.Cook for about 2 minutes or until the shrimp turns a light pink and plumps up.
- Take off of the heat and stir in the ime juice, and cilantro.
- Divide the noodles among the 4 bowls and pour the soup on top.
- Garnish with more cilantro and the remaining jalapeno if desired. Enjoy!
Nutrition Information
Did you make this?
I’d love to hear your feedback! Leave a review and make sure to share your pictures on social media! Don’t forget to follow @thechefsavvy.
Sue
Used glass noodles. Used two Thai chili’s . Used a pound of shrimp. Added more mushrooms and cilantro than called for. Will add more shrimp and other items. Will add one more Thai chili. Everything turned out wonderful.
Kelley
So glad you liked this Sue!
Thanks!
Kelley
Paula Tate
Looks delicious recipe easy to follow…definetly going to try it thanks.
Jaynie Cox
I had rice noodles and used them instead. The only correction I made was when adding the prawns/large shrimp, I only cooked them in the broth not more than a minute. My experience is when you have fresh prawns tho they may be larger in size they cook very quickly. I have been amazed at how much carryover cooking is done in these little ‘critters’
Talk about learning the hard way ?.
Trang Vu
You have ventured so far from an actual pho recipe that this noodle dish cannot be called a pho dish. I would not call it a twist, since it is a completely different dish altogether; none of the familiar ingredients and spices of a pho dish were used. It is an offense to us Vietnamese people that you called this dish Pho. Please change the name to something like Shrimp Spaghetti Noodle Soup That Thinks It’s A Pho
GG
Everyone should stop being so critical and enjoy it for what it is. I don’t care what you choose to call it, it is a very tasty dish. Jesus, people, play nice!
GG
I am a pho lover and thought this was a lovely rendition. I added Chinese 5 Spice to the broth and shredded carrots over top once in the bowl as a garnish with Thai basil and bean sprouts. Making it again this weekend. Don’t listen to the others, it delish, call it what you like ?
Master of many things
Wtf this is not pho don’t bother if you’re trying to make the real deal.
Crystal
My family loves it!!! Will add a little more jalepeno next time.
Nathan
Hi Crystal,
I’m so glad your family loved it! Thank you for commenting!
Nathan
Nicole
The sodium is high in this recipe. What can I substitute the high sodium with?
Nathan
Hi Nicole,
I may need to look into installing a different nutrition calculator. There are really only 3 sources of sodium in the recipe. The Fish sauce I have has 446 mg sodium per tsp. The chicken broth I’ve been using lately has 140 mg per cup. And 12 oz. of shrimp should have about 380 mg of sodium in them. So in grad total for this recipe it should only come out to about 415 mg per serving and not 889 mg. I’ll look into why its getting those inflated numbers. Thank you for catching that and for your comment!
Nathan
Nick Foutz
Your food looks Fantastic, also Delicious ❣️ l’ve got to try them YUMM . 😷✝️
Kelley Simmons
Thanks so much!!
M. Tran
Not pho. This isn’t close to pho at all.