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You’d be hard-pressed to find a more essential recipe for Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singaporean cooking than laksa. This curry laksa recipe, which is also completely vegan, has tender noodles drenched in rich coconut milk broth spiced with curry leaves, and fried sambal. My recipe testers freak out about this recipe, because it's all made in just one pot, so you can make a nourishing, complete meal without making a big mess of your kitchen.
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When I was nominated to represent the USA at the World Street Food Congress in the Philippines, one of the most popular vendors there was a hawker from Singapore who was sharing bowls of their famous laksa. Picking their brains, I learned about some of the tricks that make the difference between a sad sack of noodles, and a steaming bowl of laksa that you’ll never forget (in a good way, I mean).
Whether you are serving curry laksa on its own, or alongside a full spread including tahu goreng, ketoprak, and rujak serut, you are about to have your noodle lifestyle severely upgraded. Let’s do this!
Jump to:
🤷♀️ What is Laksa?
Laksa is a popular Southeast Asian noodle that combines elements of Chinese and Malay cuisine. You can find it all over Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia (less so in Bali, but I digress). It's a powerfully flavorful, spicy noodle soup, typically made with rice noodles, ramen noodles, or vermicelli, served in a broth that's stepped up to the zeta-nexus in the umami and aromatics department. Uh, that means it’s not shy about packing in the flavor, ok?
The broth varies a lot regionally, but it generally comes in two main styles:
- Curry Laksa: This version, also called laksa lemak (lemak means "creamy"), features a coconut milk-based broth infused with curry paste, giving it a rich, pungent, and spicy flavor. It often includes ingredients like tofu puffs, and sadly, when made non-vegetarian, it also sometimes includes fish cakes, shrimp, chicken broth, and/or boiled eggs. Most hawkers and restaurants serve it topped with fresh herbs and sambal chili paste.
- Asam Laksa: In Penang, Malaysia, you will find this popular variation, which is sour and bright tasting, with a broth including tamarind, lemongrass, and when made non-vegetarian, mackerel or shrimp paste. Asam Laksa is often served garnished with shredded fish, cucumber, pineapple, mint, and a dollop of prawn paste.
Of course, this recipe is 100% vegan without holding back even a wee little bit on flavor. You aren’t going to miss a thing, and the animals will appreciate the heck out of you for not eating them.
🥰Why you'll adore this curry laksa recipe
✊Vegan AF: Like all of my vegan Malaysian recipes, this laksa curry doesn’t harm a single creature, and contains no cholesterol. No fish balls, chicken stock or fish sauce are in this laksa broth!
🔥 One-Pot Wonder: Everything cooks in a single pot, making cleanup a breeze and letting you enjoy your meal with minimal cleanup. Not having to make a laksa paste means you don't need to make a mess of your food processor or blender to rock this out.
🕒 Easily made GF: Do you hate gluten so much? If you are looking for gluten-free vegan recipes, well, lemme tell you, this is the best of them. Just use rice noodles in the recipe, and you are safe from gluten making you mad. So mad.
✅ Tested and Approved Worldwide: Like all of the vegan recipes I share, after I tweaked and perfected the living daylights out of this laksa, I had it checked by a massive team of recipe testers from all around the world. I’ve confirmed that you will have success with it, pretty much no matter where you live on Earth.
🌶️ Ingredients for Curry Laksa
Japanese Eggplant
While you can 100% make this recipe with little Thai eggplants (like I use for making sayur lodeh), or ordinary big ol’purple eggplants (like I use for dishes like Turkish shakshuka and soslu patlican), it’s traditional to use Japanese eggplants. These are slender and become buttery-tender when fried. That’s why they are the eggplant of choice when I make Filipino eggplant salad, and this bagin' Thai eggplant recipe too.
If you are going to substitute Japanese eggplant with smaller green Thai eggplants, you will need 2-3 of those for every Japanese eggplant you are replacing in the recipe. If you are using regular Italian eggplants, use half of the eggplant for this entire recipe.
King Oyster Mushrooms
King oyster mushrooms, aka trumpet mushrooms and French horn mushrooms, have a meaty texture that stands up well to frying. Can’t get the king oysters? You can also make this recipe using regular oyster mushrooms (though they will look more obviously like mushrooms in the dish).
If you get more oyster mushrooms than you know what to do with, you should 100% make my baharat roasted vegan shawarma, or tom yum fried rice recipe with ‘em. You will be very pleased, and then 100 wild ponies will come play a trumpet at your bar mitzvah. (They really will).
Curry Leaves
How stupid would it be if a dish called curry didn’t actually contain curry leaves? Actually, mad curry laksa recipes are like that, but you know your boy isn't gonna swindle you liek that, right? Curry leaves are easy to keep on hand because it grows well as a house plant, and it has a gorgeous, irreplaceable aroma. I use them all the time for tadkas used in Indian dishes like soya chaap, peerkangai kootu, and kathal sabji. Frying curry leaves is probably one of the all-time great smells you can experience in a kitchen.
Sambal Oelek
This chili paste made from fresh ground chilies is a key ingredient for heat and garlic flavor. I am biased, but I think my sambal oelek recipe is better than store-bought ones. Don't want to make it, or can’t find it at the Asian markets in your 'hood? You can substitute it with sriracha or chili garlic sauce if needed.
Red Curry Paste
While some recipes give many steps to make a custom laksa paste, my red curry paste recipe is a convenient way to add 100% vegan flavor and heat. Don’t have any? Tom yum paste, or bumbu Bali are also awesome in this recipe. I don't recommend using store-bought laksa paste, as I' yet to find any that are vegetarian.
Curry Powder
The complex spices and color of a good curry powder are important for the flavor of laksa soup. I love making this recipe using Malaysian curry powder, but Madras curry powder also works great!
Noodles
While proper laksa outlets serve laksa with both rice vermicelli and hokkien noodles (the same kind I use to make Indo-Chinese Hakka noodles), I wanted to make this recipe a little more fool-proof for ya. Ramen noodles work great, are cheap, and almost impossible to cook wrong.
Bird’s Eye Chilies
I am hopelessly in love with these small red chilies that bring flavorful heat to this laksa curry recipe. My blog rocks these chilies in a kinda embarrassing number of dishes from Indonesian mie goreng, to Filipino laing, and Vietnamese vegetable bao. I am seriously never ever without them in my fridge.
Can’t find red bird’s eye chilies where you live? This recipe is great made with Indian green chili peppers (same as you would use to make hari mirch achar), or skip the chilies completely if you don’t love spice, and the recipe still works great.
Tofu Puffs
Tofu puffs are spongey, fried tofu pieces that absorb the flavorful broth. They are found at most Asian grocery stores and used in many other Malaysian recipes, such as my favey sweet potato broth curry: mee rebus. If you can’t find tofu puffs, just use regular ol’ fried tofu in its place.
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
🤯Variations
Penang Laksa
Asam laksa uses tamarind in the broth. You can simply add a heaping spoonful of my imli chutney to the curry paste when you fry it, or use tamarind concentrate instead. Garnish the finished curry mee with mint leaves, fresh pineapple, and thinly sliced red onion.
Sattvic Laksa
As a practicing Hare Krsna, at home, I don’t eat a lot of onions and garlic. So if sattvic recipes are your thing too, make the recipe without shallots or garlic, and make sure to use sambal oelek and curry paste that don’t contain those aromatics, and you will be good to go! When holding back on the shallots and garlic, it's nice to add other veggies to bring up the flavor of the dish. Add in some chopped sitaw, or green beans to the broth, which also makes it more nourishing too.
📖 How to make vegan curry laksa
Nail this classic Malaysian laksa recipe on your first shot by following these step-by-step photos with helpful tips. Or scroll down to the bottom of this page for the easy-to-print recipe card.
Step One
Do You Be Leaf in Life After Love?
Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the curry leaves and fry for forty-five to sixty seconds until crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
✅ If air frying the curry leaves, lightly coat them with cooking oil spray and air fry at 350°F (175°C) for three to four minutes.
Step Two
Fry Hard: With a Vengeance
After removing the curry leaves, add the eggplant slices to the hot oil and fry for four to five minutes until golden brown. Remove the eggplant with a slotted spoon and place them on a wire rack to drain.
Fry the king oyster mushrooms in the same oil until browned and crispy, then transfer them to the wire rack.
✅ Alternatively, coat the mushrooms and eggplant with cooking spray and air fry at 400°F (200°C) for five to six minutes until tender.
Step Three
Shallot’s Give Them Something to Talk About…
Dump out any leftover frying oil from the pot. Wipe it clean, and heat one tablespoon of oil in the pot over medium heat. After 90 seconds, when the oil is hot, add the diced shallots and sauté for 4 minutes until they become translucent and fragrant.
Step Four
Make Your Whole House Smell Amazing
Stir in the minced garlic, curry leaves, sambal oelek, red curry paste, and curry powder. Cook for 2 minutes until the mixture becomes strongly aromatic.
Step Five
The Night Stocker
Pour in the rice vinegar and vegetable stock, then increase the heat to high and bring the broth to a boil.
Step Six
Oodles of Noodles in that Kit n’ Caboodle:
Once the broth is boiling, add the noodles and cook for a few minutes until al dente.
✅ Thin rice vermicelli (like I use for making bihun goreng) cooks super fast. Like under 1 minute. Otherwise, if you use thick rice noodles, follow instructions on the packaging, or keep an eye on them, because all noodles take different amounts of time to cook.
Step Seven
C.R.E.A.M. (coconut rules everything around me)
Turn off the heat and stir in the coconut milk. Add salt to taste.
Step Eight
Bowl Up and Rock Out
Divide the noodles among serving bowls using tongs. Ladle the curry broth over the noodles and top with fried eggplant, mushrooms, and crispy curry leaves. Garnish with bean sprouts, cilantro, bird’s eye chilies, lime wedges, and tofu puffs, giving the tofu a quick dip in the broth to soak up the flavor.
💡Serving Ideas
I like to serve laksa with other Southeast Asian dishes that have super-different textures, or balance it nutritionally.
Some salads that go great with it are urap sayur and asinan sayur from Indonesia. Korean cucumber salad is also pretty refreshing as a side for Malaysian curry laksa.
Some nice crispy things that go with this curry soup amazingly are Indonesian bakwan sayur, rice dumplings, Filipino lumpiang Shanghai, vegan Thai spring rolls, and tempe mendoan. Vietnamese banh trang cuon go awesome with it too.
Need a BOMB dessert to serve after you’ve reached the bottom of your noodle bowl? It’s almost too hard to choose, but my top recommendations are Indonesian bubur sumsum, Singaporean bubur cha cha, Malaysia kuih ketayap, or Filipino mochi donuts.
👉Top tips
- Smooth, not Curdled: there’s a reason I have you add the coconut milk in at the end. Boiling it changes the texture, and adding it at the end helps to quickly cool the broth down just enough so you can assemble the bowls and get right to eating. That’s what you want, isn't it?
- Master the Aromatics: Fry the spice paste just until it darkens and becomes fragrant. Don’t let the sugars in the curry paste burn, so keep stirring the pot and scraping up anything that starts to stick or build up.
- Add Oil as Needed: Both the mushrooms and eggplant will absorb oil as they fry. That’s partially why it's important to fry the curry leaves first when there's still plenty of oil in the pot. After the eggplant is fried, if there’s not much oil left to fry the mushrooms in, just add a little splash of extra oil first.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
The spice level of vegan laksa can be adjusted to taste, but as this recipe stands, it’s got a nice balanced heat that I think is just right for most people.
You can control the heat by adding more or less chili, and by removing the seeds from the chilies. If you want it to be super spicy, use hyper-spicy shatta sauce instead of sambal oelek (it’s pure fire).
Flat rice noodles or vermicelli are popular choices for vegan laksa. They soak up the broth's flavors and have a pleasing texture. Ramen noodles make the recipe almost impossible not to mess up, and their curly shape is great for delivery of the broth to your face!
For an alternative to store-bought fried tofu puffs, regular fried or air-fried tofu is fine. You can also use pan-fried shreds of vegan chicken, or tempeh.
✌️My faves to serve with curry laksa:
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Master the vegan dishes of Malaysia and Indonesia in this super-fun cooking class with Chef Adam Sobel!
Easy One-Pot Curry Laksa (Malaysian Coconut Noodle Soup)
Equipment
Ingredients
For the fried toppings:
- 1 cup canola oil vegetable oil, or sunflower oil for frying (or cooking oil for air frying)
- 1 large Japanese eggplant 1 cm. sliced on a bias
- 2 cups king oyster mushrooms cut into long thin strips
- 12 curry leaves optional
For the Curry and Noodles:
- 1 tablespoon canola oil vegetable oil, or sunflower oil
- ½ cup shallots or red onion, diced
- 4 teaspoons garlic minced
- 12 curry leaves optional
- 2 tablespoons sambal oelek
- 4 teaspoons red curry paste
- 1 ½ teaspoons curry powder
- 1 tablespoon palm sugar coconut sugar, or brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar or lime juice
- 6 cups unsalted vegetable stock if using salted stock- hold back on the salt you add to the recipe
- 3 servings ramen noodles 3 oz. (85 g.) each, or other noodles of your choice
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
To Serve and Garnish:
- 1 cup bean sprouts
- ¼ cup cilantro leaves
- 2 bird’s eye chilies thinly sliced
- 3 lime wedges
- 12 tofu puffs cut in halves (or use homemade fried tofu instead)
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the curry leaves to the hot oil and fry them for about 45-60 seconds until they become crispy. Remove the curry leaves with a slotted spoon and set aside. If air frying, toss the curry leaves lightly in oil and air fry at 350°F (175°C) for three to four minutes. Set aside.
- Once the curry leaves have been removed from the oil, add the sliced eggplant and fry for 4-5 minutes until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a wire rack suspended over a baking pan. If you are air frying instead, spray the eggplant slices with a small amount of cooking oil and air fry at 400°F (200°C) for 6-7 minutes until golden and tender.
- Once the eggplant pieces have been removed, fry the king oyster mushrooms until they are browned and crispy, then transfer them to the wire rack to cool and drain. Carefully discard the oil from the pot, leaving it clean for the next steps. Alternatively, lightly coat the mushrooms with cooking spray, and air fry the mushrooms for 5-6 minutes at 400°F (200°C) just until tender.
- Add one tablespoon of oil to the pot over medium heat. After 90 seconds, when the oil is hot, sauté the diced shallots for 4 minutes until translucent and fragrant.
- Stir in the minced garlic, curry leaves, sambal oelek, red curry paste, and curry powder. Cook for a couple of minutes until the mixture becomes fragrant.
- Add the rice vinegar, pour in the vegetable stock and turn the heat up to high to bring the broth to a boil.
- Once boiling, add the noodles and cook until they are al dente, following the package instructions.
- Turn the heat off under the pot and stir in the coconut milk and add salt to taste.
- To assemble, use tongs to distribute the noodles evenly in the center of each bowl. Use a ladle to spoon the curry broth into each bowl over the noodles. Top with the fried eggplant, mushrooms, and curry leaves. Garnish with bean sprouts, cilantro leaves, bird’s eye chilies, lime wedges, and tofu puffs, using a spoon to briefly submerge the tofu puffs in the broth so that they absorb some of the flavor.
Notes
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Melanie says
Just made this tonight with tofu cooked in a cast iron pan, and bell pepper, broccoli, and green beans. Divine! And the broth came together much more quickly than expected.
Jennifer Lee says
This recipe was delicious! I couldn’t find curry leaves, but it was still so good. I added some spinach that I needed to use at the end of the cooking. Perfect for a cold winter night!
hg says
I took the easy way out and used ramen noodles, but this wasn't your basic ramen noodles. Topping it with eggplant , king oyster mushrooms, bean sprouts and tofu puffs really makes it a complete meal. Sometimes mistakes can be a good thing. I was making 2 recipes at once, and mistakenly sprinkled fried shallots ( meant for the other dish) on top of this dish . Didn't taste like a mistake to me ! The crowning jewel of a recipe review, My wife went back for seconds, and ate it for lunch the next day.
Sara Plataan says
Laksa is the best soup ever. I found it very difficult to get a really good vegan recipe, that has the same beautiful intense flavour, so I'm extremely happy with the recipe. Thank you much! Be making it tonight 😃
Adam Sobel says
So happy to hear you love it! I too found it hard to find a laksa recipe online that was vegan without being bland. That's why I put this one together. ❤️