Enjoying a delicious bowl of Golden Vermicelli Noodle Soup is just like getting a warm hug from your mom. Filled to the brim with gluten free Thai rice vermicelli noodles snuggled in a bath of nourishing chicken bone broth, veggies, ginger and anti-inflammatory turmeric. Less than 15 minutes and dinner is ready!
Feel better fast with our healing soups. From our immune boosting chicken and rice soup to cozy chicken curry soup - it's just what you need to get through a long hard winter.
This soup recipe was originally posted in October 2013! She was reposted on June 19, 2017 with new photos and updated on February 2, 2025 to add more helpful recipe tips.
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Warm Up with Golden Turmeric
Oh goodness! That dreaded ground hog has seen his shadow again - 6 more weeks of cold snowy weather. Don't worry because we have the easiest healing soup to warm you up from the inside out. Spices such as turmeric, ginger, garlic and black pepper are all warming spices in the 5 Energies in Food. This easy soup is essentially a pantry recipe. You probably have everything in your pantry right now to make it.
Pantry Ingredients
Vermicelli Rice Noodles - Super quick to prepare, are gluten-free and have this fun slurping quality that makes them irresistible. These noodles can be purchased in the Asian food section of the local grocery stores or even on Amazon. Feel free to substitute pad Thai noodles, ramen noodles, Chinese egg noodles or any noodles you desire. The only change will be the cooking time and the amount of broth added to cook the noodles.
Chicken Bone Broth - According to a 2017 study in the Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, drinking bone broth may be a simple way to get anti-inflammatory amino acids into the body to help heal the gut. So, it has that going for it. You can also use low sodium chicken broth or even vegetable broth to keep this vermicelli noodle soup recipe vegan.
Spices and Aromatics
- turmeric
- ginger
- garlic
- shallots or onion
- black pepper
Fresh spices and aromatics are best but you can also used dried ground. Dried ground spices are more intense compared to fresh spices. We have included both measurements in the recipe card for your convenience.
Veggies + Other Additions
Add you favorite fresh or frozen veggies. We used baby bok choy. If you want to add more protein to the recipe consider adding sliced firm tofu and/or a stream of beaten egg. Like our spicy tomato glass noodle soup, adding a beaten egg only takes a minute or two.
LOW CARB option?
If you want to go low carb/keto then feel free to try exchanging the rice vermicelli noodles with the shirataki noodles or make your own zucchini zoodles. If we are doing the low carb thing, we love adding tofu to the soup. At the very end of the cooking process, we beat and egg and then drizzle to egg into the soup while it is simmering to give it extra protein and a thicker texture.
Gut Health: Post Holiday Recovery
Are you feeling completely drained, exhausted and not quite fitting into those skinny jeans after the holidays? We have seriously overindulged this Chinese New Year holiday on potstickers, sweet sticky rice new year cake and pan fried vegan radish cake.
Now, we need to recover and bring our bodies back into balance. Golden Vermicelli Noodle Soup is a gentle and relaxing way to get your body back to baseline. Sipping on chicken bone broth is warm and nourishing. After a month of abusing your body and your digestive system, a quick review of our spleen qi menu plan is just what you need.
Easy Substitutions
As you can see the additions, exchanges and substitutions are endless. We used bok choy as we had that veggie in our crisper. This turmeric vegetable soup is also delicious with spinach, green onions and many other quick cooking green leafy veggies. Frozen veggies work great too.
Cozy Turmeric Recipes
The only item that is not substitutable is turmeric. We used ½ teaspoon of ground turmeric but you can also use 1 tablespoon of grated fresh turmeric.
Turmeric is a warming and aromatic spice with slight bitter undertones and is also used extensively in Southeast Asian and Middle-Eastern cuisines. If you like the healing effects of turmeric, you may enjoy our Easy Spiced Golden Milk , Thai Pumpkin Curry or our Turmeric Vegetable Medley
My Kitchen is Yellow - HELP...!
The most important thing is to keep the turmeric off your hands, clothes and counter tops. Unless you want an unusual yellow tied dyed shirt, you should really take note to this warning.
If grating fresh turmeric, wear gloves or you will look like you're a 5 pack a day heavy smoker with nicotine stains on your fingertips. However, this beautiful yellow color is what makes this spice a colorful addition to your cooking.
If you do happen to get a little turmeric on your countertops or cutting board, a little bleach water will usually take the stain right out.
The Secret to Delicious Noodles
Rice vermicelli noodles expand when they cook and emit a little rice flour into the soup broth for a nice thick and rich consistency broth.
These Asian noodles always come in these packages with 2-4 bunches of noodles in a pack. As you are only going to use half a package to serve 4 people, be sure to separate the noodles over a large bowl or cutting board as the little noodles break off everywhere and make a huge mess. Rice vermicelli noodles cook really fast in about 2 minutes and are gluten-free, egg free and lactose free.
Stay Warm and Well
Today we are having what they call a "monsoon". It is just more wind, rain and dampness. It is the perfect day for a hot steamy fragrant bowl of soothing and delicious Golden Vermicelli Noodle Soup with lots of warming spices.
This winter has been brutal with respiratory illnesses. So please take extra good care of yourselves. If you wake up in the middle of the night with a relentless cough and are fresh out of store bought cough medicine, be sure to try our Whiskey Honey and Lemon Cough syrup. It can tie you over until you can be seen in the clinic or get to the pharmacy.
More Cozy Soup Recipes
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Golden Vermicelli Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon oil Light flavored
- 2-3 small shallots
peeled and chopped or ½ small onion - 1 clove garlic
peeled and chopped - 1 inch ginger
knob peeled and grated or ½ teaspoon ground dried - ½ teaspoon turmeric
ground or 1 tablespoon fresh grated - 7 cups chicken bone broth or vegetable or mushroom broth -gluten-free
- 4 ounces vermicelli rice noodles
- salt and pepper
to taste (white or black pepper) - 1 cup bok choy
or quick cooking veggies of choice - tofu
optional - egg optional
Instructions
- Place light flavored oil into a soup pot. On a medium-high heat add your shallots, garlic, ginger and ground turmeric. Cook until lightly aromatic.
- Add your gluten free chicken bone broth or vegetable broth to the pan and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a gentle boil. Add your vermicelli rice noodles. Do not overcook as they only take about two minutes and then they will be aldente. Your vermicelli rice noodles will absorb some the broth and expand so adjust the amount of broth to the amount of noodles added, depending on your package size. (If you decide to use a different type of noodles, you may have to increase the amount of broth and cooking time to time specified on the package)
- Add your bok choy, and any other items you like such as tofu or egg. (If you choose to add an egg you can do this 3 ways. You can add the beaten egg at the end so your broth is thick and rich. You can add it whole at the end and make like a poached egg or maybe you want to fry your egg separately and add on the top at the end.
- Adjust seasoning to taste. Serve your golden spiced noodle soup hot and steamy.
Notes
Nutrition
Eva Taylor says
Soup is definitely on my mind Bam and must say that this one is a beauty. Tumerick is a very potent spice and I'm not necessarily used to it in such quantities, but I do love saffron (mine is from Morroco and a small batch from Turkey) so I will be quite excited to give this colourful recipe a try. I'll have to make it when hubby is away for lunch as I'm sure it wouldn't be a hit with him. I always have your ingredients on hand too, so it's perfect! A warming soup during our chilly autumn weather is just what the doctor ordered!
ashley says
This is my kinda soup! Looks gorgeous! Love soup on rainy days especially 🙂
lambyknits01 says
Soup tastes even better on rainy days! This looks perfect 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
yummychunklet says
Those are some beautiful golden noodles! And yum to the saffron!
bentodays says
Looks lovely for a rainy day! And I love reading your post, so informative!
Sandra - The Foodie Affair says
This looks very comforting!! I would love to snuggle on my couch with a blanket and this bowl of soup!
Tandy | Lavender and Lime says
what am amazing colour! Friends of ours have just got back from HK and she told me they were there during the typhoon - she said it is like our windy days here 🙂
Healthy World Cuisine says
Hi there Tandy! We were very lucky this year as Typhoon Usagi did not make a direct hit to HK so we just had lots of wind and rain. Last year we had a level 10 typhoon and every tree was down as far as I could see. I am glad that was not the case when your friends were on holiday in HK. Take Care, BAM
wok with ray says
The turmeric and saffron definitely gave this soup a beautiful-vibrant color. You made me hungry once again. I hope you are having a wonderful week, Bam. :).
Marina@Picnic at Marina says
Funny you should say about turmeric as I am typing with hands all stained in turmeric after I rubbed a chicken with my turmeric rub. 🙂 Oh rain, we have it plenty in Seattle. And I think the weather people are really care too much about adjective to describe the weather in the city that has 200 rainy day per year... But you are exactly right that on rainy day the best therapy is a bowl of good soup. Now that I have access to more oriental ingredients I will definitely make this soup. Thanks for the recipe! Missed you all this time I was away from blogging... Glad to "see" you again.
Conor Bofin says
Lovely looking soup BAM. I cooked a risotto Milanese the other evening. The risotto should be flavoured and coloured with saffron. I did sneak in some turmeric to heighten the colour a bit too. It was delicious, so I know how your lovely bowl of noodles tasted.
Don't tell on me!
Best,
Conor
Paula @ Vintage Kitchen Notes says
I started adding turmeric to everything since I learned it was so good for me! I agree, noodles in broth are one of the most comforting things to eat. And don't get me started on the unpredictable weather... Lovely soup for a rainy day!
Norma Chang says
Your beautiful bowl of soup is making me very hungry. Love the golden/yellow color of the noodles and soup. Enjoying gorgeous fall weather in New York, could use some rain though. Glad to learn that you and your family were not affected by typhoon Usagi.
sweetsimplestuff says
I am waiting for cold weather so that I could enjoy your soup recipe! Here in California, when we have "monsoonal" weather, it usually means hot and humid ... rain in some areas ... not exactly the same as Hong Kong 😉
dianeskitchentable says
That soup does look like just what the doctor ordered - I think I need to have some on hand. I just found out what you mean about the turmeric though - I'd never used it before & when I looked at my hands I thought I'd developed some weird skin disease. The price of saffron here is unbelievable - I wonder if you get a better price on it in Hong Kong, but the last little bit that I bought was like buying a brick of gold.
Jo says
MMMmmm, looks almost too good to eat....ALMOST! 😉 xo