Now that the cold weather is here, a warm bowl of Banh Canh is a must-have!
Vietnamese thick noodle Soup, or Banh Canh, is one of my favorite childhood foods. It’s the most simplest and purest of all the Vietnamese noodle soups.
As a kid, I ate it regularly for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In its simplest form, it’s thick noodles in a rich and savory pork broth. There aren’t too many components like other Vietnamese noodle soups. However, variations of Banh Canh such as Banh Canh Cua can include proteins like crab, shrimp, fish balls, and fried fish cakes.
In restaurants, a side of Vietnamese herbs and greens also accompanies the noodle.
The Banh Canh noodles are thick and chewy, made from tapioca flour or a combination of tapioca flour and rice flour. They resemble Japanese udon noodles and quite often, I love to use Japanese udon noodles as a substitute.
The broth starts with pork bones like hocks and neck bones. If you prefer, you can use chicken stock instead. I like to save chicken bones from when I debone/prep whole chickens. You can also just throw in a whole chicken if you want.
The bones are simmered on low for two hours and then seasoned with fish sauce, salt, bouillon powder, and a bit of sugar for balance.
I like the broth on the thicker side so sometimes I would cook my noodles directly in the stock pot. The starchy noodles not only absorb the flavorful broth while cooking, but the starch from the noodles also thickens up the broth.
I also like to color my broth with annatto seeds. I heat the annatto seeds in vegetable oil to render the color and then add the colored oil to the broth. This is purely optional but the red color adds oomph to an otherwise seemingly plain dish.
My husband is not a big fan of this noodle soup because he gets hungry again quickly after a bowl. His dislike for Banh Canh is one reason I make this for dinner whenever he makes me mad.
However, lately, he has been asking for this soup. This throws my passive-aggressive-petty revenge out of whack.
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