Vietnamese beef and tomato soup with rice noodles (Bún Bò Sáo Răm)

Welcome back to the recipes/cooking category after such a long time! In this post, I would like to introduce you all to a simple yet unpopular Vietnamese rice noodle soup that you probably would never find it anywhere: Bún Bò Sáo Răm. If you look up this term directly on Google, it would pop up a few different versions, mainly due to where it is made. There is one version from the Middle region of Vietnam, specifically Phan Thiet province, while my version probably comes from the North region, where my grandma was born. And yes, I knew and learnt about this recipe from my grandma (another delicious recipe from grandma, haha!). I grew up with this rice noodle soup, my grandma often made it for our breakfast because it was super easy (and fast) to prepare. I missed it dearly so over the last week, I decided to make it. And I am proudly to share this today.

What’s in this “Bún Bò Sáo Răm”?

This rice noodle soup features simple ingredients: thin-sliced beef, lots of tomatoes and Vietnamese coriander. The rice noodles used in this recipe is called “Bún”, with a diameter around 1 inch (2 cm). The thin-sliced beef was stir-fried lightly, then the tomatoes (cut in wedges) were sautéed and the broth was added in with the Vietnamese coriander, which gave a very distinctive aroma and taste to the dish. The Vietnamese coriander could be found in Vietnamese or Asian market. I also found out that in case we didn’t have enough tomatoes in hands, use tomato paste, pasta sauce for enough tomato taste in the broth, 1 tablespoon for 1 tomato.

The broth used for this recipe could be any kinds of broth, whether meat-based or vegetable broth. I used vegetable broth because it was available in our home all the time. If you want to use other broth, check out my posts about broth here:

• Homemade broths for a variety of recipes
• Homemade vegetable broth

Now, without any further words, let’s dig in!

Ingredients: (for 3 servings)

• Dried rice noodles: about 200-250 grams
• Water (to boil the noodles): 1 Liter
• Thin-sliced beef: 300 grams
• Tomato: 6 Roma tomatoes
• Vegetable broth (or just water): 1.5 Liters
• Cooking oil: 2 tablespoons
• Shallot: 1/2 of whole shallot
• Garlic: at least 8 cloves
• Vietnamese coriander: 1 bunch
• Seasoning:
  • Salt: 2 tablespoons
  • Sugar: 1 tablespoon
  • Mushroom bouillon powder: 1/2 tablespoons
• Garnish: fresh leaves of Vietnamese coriander, cilantro and spring onion

Preparations:

• Rinse the Vietnamese coriander, then separate the leaves and stems. Gather all the stems and tie them with cotton strings to place in the broth later. Rinse the tomatoes and cut them into wedges.
• Roughly chop the shallot and 4 cloves of garlic. Divide the chopped shallot and garlic in half, one for the beef and one for the tomatoes. Save the remaining 4 cloves of peeled garlic for the broth later on.
• Place a pot on medium heat, add in 1 tablespoon of oil. When the oil is hot, add in the half portion of chopped garlic and shallot, fry till fragrant. Add in the thin-sliced beef and stir-fry until slightly cooked. Set aside the beef.
• In the same pot, add in 1 tablespoon of oil and the other half portion of chopped garlic and shallot, fry till fragrant. Then, add in the tomato wedges and sautéed till soften. After that, throw in the remaining cloves of garlic, the stems of Vietnamese coriander (that we have just tied earlier) and pour in the broth (or just hot water). Cover it with a lid, bring it to gentle boil.

• When the broth is brought to gentle boil, reduce the heat down to simmer and let it simmer for additional 10 minutes. After that, remove the Vietnamese coriander stems and add in the stir-fried beef back in the pot, remove any scums if there’s any. Then, we season the broth with salt, sugar and the mushroom bouillon powder and bring it to a gentle boil again.
• When the broth is gently boiling, turn off the heat and add in some fresh leaves of the Vietnamese coriander.

• Place the rice noodle in your favorite bowl, pour the hot broth with thin-sliced beef, add more fresh Vietnamese coriander and chopped cilantro, spring onion as garnish, and enjoy! I can’t wait to make it again!

Total time: 35 minutes

That’s it for this recipe! It was a very refreshing and savory dish! Try it and let me know what you think!Don’t forget to hit Like or Subscribe to the blog for more delicious content and I hope to see you in the next post!