This Thai and Malaysian-influenced recipe is a combination of fresh seafood and punchy flavours, in a rich creamy broth. It’s a slurpy kind of soup, brightly coloured and filled with hearty noodles. Seafood laksa is seriously delicious – if you like seafood and Asian flavours, you’ll find it’s heaven in a bowl 😍

You can use ready-made laksa paste, which you can find in most large supermarkets – but you can also make it yourself; you will see here how easy it is. Homemade laksa is better as it brings out the best flavour with all the fresh ingredients.

There are different ways to make laksa; you can make it with mixed seafood, or chicken and prawns, or you can use fish.

My version here uses a seafood cocktail mixture from Bradley’s Fish, which came with large Chilean mussels, big squid rings, peeled deveined prawns, and clam meat. Perfect selection of seafood with amazing flavour.

Seafood Laksa Soup

Ingredients (serves 4)

For the laksa paste:

• 3 medium red chillies, deseeded and chopped
• 3 shallots, chopped (or 1 regular onion)
• 2 stems of lemon grass, stems chopped (or 2 tablespoons of lemongrass paste, sometimes this is easier to find in the shops)
• 1 small piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped (or 1 tablespoon of ginger paste)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon ground turmeric
• Handful of fresh coriander, leaving some leaves for garnish
• ½ tsp cumin
• ½ tsp paprika
• ½ tsp turmeric (this is what gives it a bright yellow colour!)
• 2 tablespoons of sesame oil

For the soup:

• 500g seafood mix
• 100 white rice noodles
• 400 ml (1 can) coconut milk
• 1 cup of chicken stock
• 100g asparagus (or your vegetable of choice, broccoli or beansprouts also work great on this dish)
• Juice of 1 lime

For garnish:

• Slices of red chillies
• Fresh coriander
• Spring onion
• White and black sesame seeds

Instructions

1. Cook the seafood in a pan with a little olive oil for a few minutes, then set aside.
2. Place rice noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave to soak for 10 minutes, then drain and set aside.
3. To make the paste, place all the paste ingredients, plus a tablespoon of water, into a food processor and blend until smooth. Add the prepared paste to a pan heated with a drizzle of olive oil, and cook over a medium heat for 2 minutes. Add a cup of water with chicken stock, then the coconut milk, and stir. Leave to simmer gently for 15 – 20 minutes.
4. In the meantime, heat a pan with butter or olive oil and add your asparagus. They only take a few minutes on both sides.
5. When the soup is ready, add the noodles and asparagus, and squeeze lime juice in. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then bring back to a simmer and add your seafood.  
6. Ladle the laksa into two deep bowls, and serve by sprinkling over fresh coriander, chillies, chopped spring onion and some sesame seeds.

Let me know what you think of this recipe in the comments 😋 And if you make it, remember to tag me @GlasgowFoodelicious!