Easy Beef Pho
This is the easiest and quickest recipe for making Beef Pho soup at home. You can make this delicious Vietnamese-style beef pho recipe in under 30 minutes - the secret is to use high quality beef broth, either homemade or a high-quality store bought bone broth will work.
After a long-weekend in Hanoi when I ate pho literally three times a day, I was determined to find a way to recreate this delicious pho soup of Vietnam in my kitchen without having to spend five hours slaving over the soup. So I created this kitchen hack - quick and easy pho recipe that would be ready for a quick healthy low-calorie beef pho soup after a busy long day.
Since I almost always have beef broth and chicken broth in my freezer, I decided to infuse regular beef broth with the flavours of pho rather than having to make a specific bone broth every time I wanted to make beef pho soup. This result is this quick and easy beef pho soup that is nourishing and low calorie, not to mention a delicious way to eat bone broth in a meal.
The spices will keep for a long time in your store cupboard so you should be able to make this again and again. There is no hard and fast rule for which vegetables to use for pho; I have had various combinations of green vegetables in pho soups across Vietnam. There is almost always Asian celery which has thinner stalks and darker leaves than the celery commonly available in Western supermarkets so I would suggest just using the leaves from Western celery. Use your favourite green vegetables to make this pho soup recipe.
Easy Beef Pho
Serves 2
Ingredients
500ml of my beef bone broth or a high-quality store-bought broth
2 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
6 coriander seeds
4 slices of ginger
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 tablespoons of fish sauce
1-2 tablespoons of lime juice + a wedge of lime to garnish
1 teaspoons of sugar
Rice noodles (I use Shirataki or Zero Carb noodles if I am counting calories)
200g sirloin steak, very thinly sliced
Handful of beansprouts
2 scallions or spring onions, chopped
2/3 leaves of lettuce, torn
A handful of Celery leaves, torn
Handful of herbs such as coriander, mint and Thai basil
Thinly sliced red chili, to you taste
Method
Place the beef stock in a pot with the spices and garlic. Slowly heat so that the aromas are released. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes being careful not to let the stock reduce too much. Add a cup of water if needed.
Meanwhile, cook the noodles according to the packet instructions. Once cooked, assemble your individual bowls with noodles, meat and garnishes as per the photo below.
Season the soup with lime, sugar and fish sauce, according to your taste.
Pour the hot soup through a fine mesh sieve directly over the ingredients. Make sure the soup is piping hot so that it will cook the meat.
Serve with a wedge of lime and garnish with the herbs.
Assemble the pho ingredients in individual bowls before pouring in the hot infused beef broth
Assembling the Beef Pho
Place the noodles, meat and vegetables in individual bowls.
Note - if you are uncomfortable cooking meat in the soup then I would suggest sous-viding it at 120F or 50C for 45 minutes beforehand.
Pour the piping hot soup into each bow through a fine mesh sieve so as to catch the spices.
Garnish each bowl of beef pho with the fresh herbs and serve a wedge of lime. Serve immediately.