Pho Chay – Vegan Pho

by LifeInDungarees

One of my favorites restaurants to go out to eat is a Vietnamese and sushi restaurant in Town. I used to always ask for the Pho (they have a tofu one, but I think the broth is meat based), so, since I stopped eating meat I never had one again and I really loved it! So I started looking for recipes, I mixed a few and adapted them to my taste.

For the broth you can simply buy a vegetable broth but I like to make my own, this will make enough broth for 4-5 meals, you will need:

4 Carrots

2 Celery sticks

2 Onions

3 cloves of Garlic

2 Bay leaves

A bit of Thyme

(this is my base but you can change it to your taste) and for the Vietnamese taste:

2 Star Anise

1 Cinnamon stick

1 tbsp Black Pepper corns

Salt

A Piece of Ginger

4 pieces of Cardamom

1 tsp of Coriander seeds

Put all the previous ingredients in a big pot (you don’t need to peel them, just roughly slice them once or twice) cover with water and let it simmer for about an hour.

The hard part is done, now you just need to assemble the pho. I put some

Bok Choy

Bean sprouts

Red and spring onions finely sliced

Rice noodles

in a bowl and covered everything with Broth.

Bok choy is very popular in chinese food, it’s light, sweet, it has a crisp texture and is very nutritious. Not only is bok choy high in Vitamin A, Vitamin C and calcium, but it is low in calories.

I don’t really like tofu or any fake meets but you can use them if you do.

When all mixed in your bowl you can also add Sriracha, Hoisin sauce and some freshly chopped Coriander leaves. It is usual to add some thai Basil leaves, but I personally don’t like it because of it’s very strong “Liquorish-like” taste.

Sriracha adds the spicy and Hoisin is a chinese sauce also called Chinese barbecue sauce (not because it has a similar flavour, but because it is used for a variety of purposes), it has a balanced mix of salty, sweet and tangy, it’s perfect for this recipe.

I know it’s a bit of hard work and time consuming, it’s not an every day recipe, but it’s light, spicy and full of different flavours, so worthy!

With Love,

Sara