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Easy and Quick Asian Ginger Fish Soup-Learn how to make a delicious quick and flavorful fish soup that will quickly become your weekly staple. Loaded with flavors.

Easy and Quick Asian Fish Soup
SIMPLE FISH SOUP RECIPE
Easy and quick Asian fish soup is exactly as it sounds. I just named it Asian fish soup, because it’s not particularly specific to any country, but the recipe does call for common Southeast Asian ingredient such as fish sauce. It is one of our family favorites. My daughter loves sole fish fillet because they are so tender and melt in your mouth when you eat them. The base of this soup is incredibly easy to build as well. If you have fish stocks, great, you can use that to make this soup. I didn’t and I just use water and it still turns out so delicious.
WHAT KIND OF FISH CAN I USE IN THIS RECIPE?
Any white fish fillet would be suitable for this recipe. I have used sole and swai fillet before. You can use fish like cod, cat fish, tilapia, just to name a few.
WHY YOU’LL LIKE THIS FISH SOUP
First of all, it’s really easy and it feeds the whole family. This soup is highly addicting. We love it!!! so much! It looks red because of the tomatoes not because it is deadly spicy 😉 This soup has just the right balance of savory, hint of sweetness and slightly tart (from the lime juice). When you taste it, it reminds you of typical Southeast Asian food: sweet, salty, sour. It can be made spicy too by adding some bird’s eye chili when you process the aromatics in food processor.
HOW TO MAKE THIS SUPER EASY FLAVORFUL ASIAN FISH SOUP
1. Cut the fish into large chunks (about 3-inch chunks)
Don’t cut any smaller than that or they will break apart in the soup
2. Marinate the fish slices
Marinate with some cornstarch and fish sauce for 15 minutes. Some of you have asked do I need the cornstarch? My mom likes to do this with meat and fish because the cornstarch helps to give that smooth texture and helps to tenderize the flesh a bit. You can skip the cornstarch if you don’t want to
3. Place aromatics in food processor to finely chop them or you can do it by hands too
4. Preheat a large heavy-bottom pot. Add cooking oil. Saute the aromatics over medium heat until aromatics, about 5 minutes
5. Pour in chicken stock and bring to a boil. Scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen any bits that got stuck earlier
6. Add celery (if using) and tomatoes and cook for about 10 minutes
7. Add the fish slices and lime juice and cook until the fish slices are cooked through
8. Have a final taste and add more fish sauce to your taste if needed. Remove from the heat. Garnish with fresh chopped cilantro leaves
Final product will look like this.
WHAT TO SERVE WITH THIS FISH SOUP
You can serve this with a bowl of plain white rice/brown rice, cooked quinoa. This is perfect to serve with rice noodles, bean thread noodles too. Just cook the noodles separately and then ladle the soup and fish slices over the noodles. There you have it, Asian Fish Soup with Noodles. My kids love it with bean thread noodles.
Easy and Quick Asian Ginger Fish Soup
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Swai fillet or sole fillet cut into large chunks
- 1 Tbsp cooking oil
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 4 Roma tomatoes seeded and diced
- 2 cups chopped celery optional
Seasonings:
- 2 Tbsp Fish sauce or more to taste
- 2 tsp sugar
Aromatics:
- 5 shallots finely chopped
- 2 inch piece of ginger grated
- 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
Marinade:
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp fish sauce
Just before serving the soup:
- 1 stalk green onion finely chopped
- Cilantro leaves
- 2 fresh limes optional
Instructions
- Place the fish fillet in a large mixing bowl. Add cornstarch and fish sauce and use a clean hand to toss the fish to let the cornstarch and fish sauce coat the fillet pieces. Set aside while you prepare the other things
Cooking:
- Preheat a large heavy-bottom pot with some oil. Add the chopped ginger, garlic, shallots and saute over medium heat for about 2-3 minutes. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add celery if using (I didn't use in the video).Then lower the heat and let it simmer for about 15 minutes until the celery are soft. You can prepare ahead up to this point
- When ready to serve the fish soup, bring the soup back to a gentle simmer and add the tomatoes, and the fish fillet. The fish is easily flaked if it's cooked through, if not, let it cook a bit longer. Do not overcook the fish. Have a taste and add more fish sauce to your taste if needed. Remove from the heat
- Ladle soup into serving bowl (family style) or individual serving bowl, and garnish with cilantro and green onion just before serving and a squeeze of lime juice if you like
26 comments
This was so easy to cook and it was absolutely yummy. I put a fish head in the soup and i think it made it tastier.
What a great idea to include a fish head! That for sure will make it even tastier 🙂
As a malay malaysian i know tht this will taste great.
Am at the grocers looking for a quick meal to cook and this popped up.
Its a great soup to add all sorts of veges into for a quick and complete weekday dinner.
Adding diff types of leaves and pepper can create variety if we want to play around with the recipe.
Thanks for your posted. Im sorted for the next few days!
Hi Alya, I agree with you that this recipe is very flexible and you can add all sorts of veggies and other things you like.
Hi, would love to try this soup soon. May I know the purpose of coating the fish fillets with cornflour? Thanks.
Hi Kris,
The cornstarch helps to “tenderize” the fillets. You can totally skip it too if you don’t want to do that.
My daughter and I are making this tonight. We make a cold mexican shrimp cocktail with similar ingredients and love it as much as you claim to love the soup. Can’t wait for it to be done. Question though about the fish sauce and cornstarch measurements. 2tsp of each seemed too little for 2 pounds of fish. May I confirm it is not 2 Tbsp each? I ended up using the later when the first didn’t much of the fish.
Hi Debbie,
Thank you for letting me know. There was typo for sure. It should be 2 Tbsp of corn starch. The fish sauce is correct. You can always add more of the fish sauce to your taste on final tasting. I hope both of you enjoy the soup !!
Getting ready to cook this now! Looks and sounds amazing
ohhh..I hope you like it. Let me know how it turns out if you will 🙂 Thanks for trying