This time of year, many people cozy up to creamy, rich soups. Not me. I stick with my year-round Vietnamese standby: canh (pronounced “cahhn”). Loaded with vegetables and a little protein, the light, brothy soups signal homey comfort. I learned to make them from my mom, who prepared them five nights a week. When one of us kids jokingly complained, she’d say, “Hot soup warms you in the cold and cools you in the heat.” That always got us to quiet down and slurp up.
Traditional Viet meals include canh plus a meat dish, a simple vegetable, and rice. In my family, we always started by filling our rice bowls with canh, then returned for seconds or thirds later in the meal to cleanse our palates.
That said, enjoying Viet flavours doesn’t require that you flex your culinary muscles to make a multi-dish meal. As I encourage people in Vietnamese Food Any Day, my latest cookbook, canh may be served with non-Viet dishes, or simply with bread and butter. Let it casually fit into your lifestyle.
There are countless renditions of canh but my go-to is full of greens, seafood, and gingery zip. The method boils down to strategically building layers of flavour. Here’s how it goes:
How to Make Healthy Vietnamese Canh
Warm a splash of neutral oil in a medium pot over medium heat.
Meanwhile, thinly slice half a medium onion (yellow is great but red works too) and drop it into the pot.
To coax sweetness from the onion, gently cook it, stirring occasionally, till it’s soft and no longer smells raw, about 3 to 4 minutes.
At that point, pour in 5 to 6 cups water (this isn’t fancy cooking so no broth is needed). Then season the liquid with salt and fish sauce—I usually use about ½ tsp. salt and 1 Tbsp. fish sauce (my go-to brands are Red Boat, Son, 3 Crabs, or Dynasty).
Crank up the heat to bring things to a boil and vigorously cook for 3 to 5 minutes to develop a little flavour.
Then add a lot (8 ounces) of chopped greens. Mustard greens, turnip greens, radish tops, kale, or mature spinach will all work (and it’s fine to combine different types).
Things will look very full but after about 5 minutes the greens will wilt, soften, and relax. At that point, in goes about 1 1/2 teaspoons finely chopped ginger and 1 dozen peeled and deveined raw shrimp that have been cut into chunks (or, if you’re feeling artsy, split down their lengths so they curl up into cutie corkscrews).
As soon as the seafood looks opaque and cooked through, slide the pot to a cool burner and let it rest, uncovered, for 5 to 10 minutes. You don’t have to tend to the pot: This final step exists just to allow the flavours to meld.
Regardless of your canh, right before serving, taste it and add extra salt or fish sauce, if needed. Splash in water if the soup is too strong. Serve in individual soup bowls, or a large bowl to share.
Bonus tweaks:
Instead of shrimp, substitute a 6-ounce fillet of mild fish, such as rockfish, sea bass, or tilapia, cut into bite-size pieces.
Or, if you’re not into seafood, add 5 to 6 ounces of ground pork or chicken to the pot after sautéing the onion. Season the meat with the salt and fish sauce and stir and mash it to break it into bits. Then add the water, bring things to a boil, simmer and continue as usual.
To turn leftovers into a noodle soup, add glass noodles (a.k.a. bean thread or saifun; soak a bundle in hot water until softened then snip with scissors) to the pot when reheating. When they’re clear, you’re ready to eat.
