Thai Rice Soup is a simple but flavorful dish. It’s a great way to reheat leftover rice.

Asians don’t seem to view breakfast as a special meal like we do in the West. They tend to eat much the same food at breakfast as at other times of the day. Often breakfast is leftover food from the previous day.

Cambodian students like sliced cold pork, steamed rice and pickled vegetables. Vietnamese often start their day with Pho. That was Becks’ favorite breakfast while we were there.

We had Thai rice soup for breakfast at the Bambuh Boutique Homestay. It was such a great way to start the day. There’s almost as much rice as broth in the soup so it’s a hearty but light breakfast.

Thai rice soup is very simple – chicken broth, fresh ground black pepper, green onion, cilantro, ground pork and day old rice. That’s it.

It’s made by bringing the broth, pepper, cilantro stems and onions to a rolling boil. Then you add the ground pork and cook until it’s just done. Put the rice in a bowl, ladle the broth/pork on top and top with fresh cilantro.

Since the spice comes from fresh ground pepper so you can easily increase or decrease the spiciness of this soup to your liking. Thais like it pretty spicy. I made this recipe moderately spicey so increase the pepper if you want more Thai flavor.

It is best if your rice is a little dried out for this soup. You want the rice to absorb some of the broth but not become mushy. If you have more soup than you need, store the rice and broth separately. I had leftover soup (broth and rice combined) that I tried to reheat the next day and the rice absorbed all the broth. Tasted great but wasn’t soup any more.

gail