What the Pho?!
I’ve been working hard perfecting the techniques and recipe for Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup, or Pho, just for you. It’s taken years of kitchen experiments, eating out and scouring for good recipes. Of all the cookbooks that I own, the best recipe that I’ve found for Pho is from:
Andrea Nguyen’s 
Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, which is one of the most comprehensive books on the cuisine of Vietnam. The book also won nominations for a James Beard Foundation award and two International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). Definitely a must-have book for Asian food lovers.
So, let’s get right to the Vietnamese Beef Pho Recipe!
The dish is pronounced “fuh” and not “foo” or “foe” or “puh”
Yeah, Pho is cheap eat out…but to be able to make a home made version? Pretty Pho-king amazing, if you ask me.
Pho Spices
It’s best if you can get each spice separately, but I do find that the spice packets are pretty convenient. They cost less than $2.00 and even come with a mesh bag to put all the spices in. Spices include cinnamon sticks, cloves, coriander pods, star anise and cardamom. Whatever you do, don’t use the Pho spice paste that comes in a jar or can. Nasty stuff, that’s Pho-sho’.
Best Bones for Pho
Leg and knuckle bones are the best to make the stock. See that wonderful yellow marrow below in the photo? That’s pure flavoring that makes your Pho taste full, meaty and rich. But let’s say that you can’t find leg/knuckle bones. Go ahead and use whatever beef bones your supermarket has and just supplement with some oxtail bones or a pound of beef meat (rump, chuck, brisket, etc.) for extra flavor.
Bones are parboiled first for a good 10 minutes in rapidly boiling water – this gets rid of the yucky impurities like blood particles and extra fat. You’ll see gray foam float up to the surface as you boil. After 10 minutes, dump out all of the water, rinse out your pot, rinse the bones, and refill with clean, cool water. I know it’s an extra step, but this will give you the pure, clean-tasting broth.
This is just after blanching – the golden gelatinous goodness is where all the flavor and body is.
Charring Onions and Ginger
Charring or roasting the onions and ginger gives you a wonderfully mellow and naturally sweet flavor. I used to char over an open flame on my stovetop with a pair of tongs, but that got pretty tiring. Plus, metal tongs + long time over flame = very hothothot hands. So now, I just raise my oven rack to the highest position and turn my broiler on. See how golden the ginger gets?
Damn Scumbag!
So here is my broth boilin’ away with the mesh bag of spices, charred ginger, charred onions and beef bones. You can see floating bits of fat and the damn scumbag.
Fat & marrow bits = good eats. Try to keep that in the broth!
But gotta get rid of the scum! I use a very, very fine mesh strainer designed just for scum. heh. A scumbag strainer. Can you imagine if I had a line of cookware and tools – “Steamy Kitchen Scumbag Strainer.” Straining the scum keeps your broth pure and clean. The lower the simmer, the less scum you have.
A note on broth simmering time – I simmer the broth for 3 hours. According to both Andrea Nguyen and Corinne Trang (author of Authentic Vietnamese Cooking and former editor and director of Saveur’s test kitchen) – all of the flavors in the bone have been extracted after 3 hours.
Thin Sliced Meat
You can use a thinly sliced flank steak, london broil, sirloin, eye of round or tri-tip. Instead of beef slices, you could use beef balls (Bo Vien) found in the freezer section of your Asian market. The secret to cutting meat is to cut across the grain. You want your beef slices as thin as possible, and I always throw the whole chunk of meat in the freezer for 15 minutes to make it easier to slice thinly.
Pho Noodles
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Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup typically uses rice noodles. You can buy them dried or fresh. I love the slippery softness of fresh noodles (look in the refrigerator or freezer section) Most restaurants will use dried, flat rice noodles. Look for ones that are medium thickness and flat like these. |
Pho-tastic Condiments
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On the tables of every Pho restaurant, you’ll see these two condiments, Cock Sauce (Sriracha hot chili sauce) and Hoisin Sauce. You can squirt and slather as much of these two condiments as you want…but I’m a purist.If I’m going to spend a couple of hours carefully crafting a rich, flavor-packed, clean soup – I better taste every damn drop. Condiment sauces just get in the way.
Sometimes, I’ll squirt a bit of each sauce in a little dish and dip my meat in the sauce as I take a bite. You ask….why do we call it Cock sauce? See that rooster on the bottle? |
Pho Vegetables and Herbs
Fresh mint, cilantro, basil, bean sprouts, limees, sliced chili peppers are just some of my favorite accompaniments. Set a plate at the table and your guests can pick and choose what they like.
Great Pho-tograph of fresh vegetables and herbs
PrintVietnamese Pho: Beef Noodle Soup Recipe
Pho-Shizzle, My Bowl-o Noozle!!
Adapted from my favorite Vietnamese cookbook: Into the Vietnamese Kitchen
serves 8
Sometimes, I omit the 1lb of beef meat in the broth (you’ll see I’ve made it optional) – as I’ve found that as long as I have good bones, the broth will have enough flavor to not need the extra beef meat.
THE BROTH
2 onions, halved
4″ nub of ginger, halved lengthwise
5-6 lbs of good beef bones, preferably leg and knuckle
1 lb of beef meat – chuck, brisket, rump, cut into large slices [optional]
6 quarts of water
1 package of Pho Spices [1 cinnamon stick, 1 tbl coriander seeds, 1 tbl fennel seeds, 5 star anise, 1 cardamom pod, 6 whole cloves - in mesh bag]
1 1/2 tbl salt
1/4 cup fish sauce
1 inch chunk of yellow rock sugar (about 1 oz) – or 1oz of regular sugar
THE BOWLS
2 lbs rice noodles (dried or fresh)
cooked beef from the broth
1/2 lb flank, london broil, sirloin or eye of round, sliced as thin as possible.
big handful of each: mint, cilantro, basil
2 limes, cut into wedges
2-3 chili peppers, sliced
2 big handfuls of bean sprouts
Hoisin sauce
Cock sauce (Sriracha)
Char: Turn your broiler on high and move rack to the highest spot. Place ginger and onions on baking sheet. Brush just a bit of cooking oil on the cut side of each. Broil on high until ginger and onions begin to char. Turn over and continue to char. This should take a total of 10-15 minutes.
Parboil the bones: Fill large pot (12-qt capacity) with cool water. Boil water, and then add the bones, keeping the heat on high. Boil vigorously for 10 minutes. Drain, rinse the bones and rinse out the pot. Refill pot with bones and 6 qts of cool water. Bring to boil over high heat and lower to simmer. Using a ladle or a fine mesh strainer, remove any scum that rises to the top.
Boil broth: Add ginger, onion, spice packet, beef, sugar, fish sauce, salt and simmer uncovered for 1 1/2 hours. Remove the beef meat and set aside (you’ll be eating this meat later in the bowls) Continue simmering for another 1 1/2 hours. Strain broth and return the broth to the pot. Taste broth and adjust seasoning – if you want a little more flavor, add a few dashes more of fish sauce, large pinch of salt and a small nugget of rock sugar (or large pinch of regular sugar).
Prepare noodles & meat: Slice your flank/london broil/sirloin as thin as possible – try freezing for 15 minutes prior to slicing to make it easier. Remember the cooked beef meat that was part of your broth? Cut or shred the meat and set aside. Arrange all other ingredients on a platter for the table. Your guests will “assemble” their own bowls. Follow the directions on your package of noodles – there are many different sizes and widths of rice noodles, so make sure you read the directions. For some fresh rice noodles, just a quick 5 second blanch in hot water is all that’s needed. The package that I purchased (above) – needed about 45 seconds in boiling water.
Ladling: Bring your broth back to a boil. Line up your soup bowls next to the stove. Fill each bowl with rice noodles, shredded cooked beef and raw meat slices. As soon as the broth comes back to a boil, ladle into each bowl. the hot broth will cook your raw beef slices. Serve immediately. Guests can garnish their own bowls as they wish.
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Crock Pot/Slow Cooker Pho Recipe
Don’t have time to man a stove? Use your crock pot or slow cooker!
Vietnamese Chicken Pho (Pho Ga) Recipe
Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup (Pho Ga)
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Pho-Lovers Pho-Ever
{ 211 comments… read them below or add one }
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Great step by step instructions! My husband and I are big fans of pho
We are going to Hanoi in April and are so excited to finally be able to try pho in Vietnam!
I wanna jump through my 15″ screen and slurp that bowl!!!! no spoon needed!!
Okay for real… maybe some chopstix… looks great fo’ shizzle… lol
B-
Beautiful! I love Pho, but I haven’t tried making it.
I’ve never had pho before but it looks awesome. Not to mention the obvious fun in finding ways to use “pho” in a sentence.
this looks awesome, and i am FREEZING in the middle of a NY snowstorm right now. i think a warm thai soup would be just perfect. oh, and now i need a scum strainer.
Jaden,
Pho-king awesome post. We don’t make pho at home because, here in San Jose, the competition between all the Vietnamese restaurants keeps the prices low and the quality high.
I just made this amazingly easy and delicious pot of pho… but now Im wondering how to store it and how long it will last.
Any ideas?!
Thanks!!!!
Hi Julie, Just freeze the stock. You can store in refrig for 3 days or freeze for 3 months.
Haha! Wonderful post! It was great fun to read and now you’ve saved me from looking like an idiot if I ever need to say Pho *NOT FOE* in front of people!
I’m reporting back after having made my first pho broth. It was fantastic! I did add more fish sauce after the long simmer, I like it a little more pungent! I have 3 quart bags in the freezer, and I realize I need a bigger pot if I want to make a larger batch. I had gone to my far away Korean market and bought frozen pre-sliced ribeye, and brisket there. Lovely stuff, just fantastic. Since I didn’t find the pre assembled mesh bags of pho seasoning, I used tea bags. I’m not sure what it says in Japanese, but they are poly fiber bags. I still stuck the bag inside a big straining ball, since the tea bag does not close up tightly. I was able to find marrow bones sliced in 2 inch lengths at Publix, so that was great! I did not get as much scum as Jaden did. Hmmm I wonder why. The broth came out a lovely carmel color, with little globs of fat floating on top. I don’t know if that’s to be expected, but it was lovely. What do I do with the leftover bits of marrow that slipped out of the bone? I threw that away along with the bones. I think the rock candy gives the broth a better flavor than regular granulated sugar. Did I get it right?
http://cookieloveseating.blogspot.com/2008/01/pho-vietnamese-beef-noodle-soup.html
I did pho a few weeks back too. it was awesome! lots of similarities with your recipe.
MMMMMMM pho = food of the earth gods
Wonderful Joanne!
Secretly, one of my fav parts of making pho broth is eating the marrow! I usually just spoon it out, dab a little hot sauce on it and I’m in heaven….
xo, jaden
Great pictures, Jaden. I purchased this cookbook a few months ago but haven’t had a chance to make anything from it yet.
I picked up a “Scum Strainer” in my travels least year. Here’s some pictures of what it looks like. I can’t read Japanese, so maybe you’ll be able to source it elsewhere.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2111/2261608803_e2f9321e59.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2277/2261608809_47186d337d.jpg
BTW, how’s that XO sauce recipe coming?
Gong Xi Fa Chai to you…I absolutely love Pho! I miss Vietnamese food from San Francisco. I want a bowl of your bad ass Pho! Hahaha…that somehow came out wrong. :p
That is one of my very favorite cookbooks. It’s so delightfully personal.
I have been eating pho for lunch a few times a week since its so cold out. Now I just might make some at home.
Hey Jaden
Wonderful pics, and I just happened to have Pho Rau Cai and Muc Chien today at Trang Viet. If you want a break from stinking up your kitchen, drive up to Tampa on Fowler and try them. They are a French Vietnamese place, so the Pho is a little lighter. My other favourite place for Pho and green Papaya salad is Mekong, in St. Pete on 34th st just north of 62nd ave. Have known the owner’s daughters for years and they are always jampacked with the local little Saigon regulars.
The last few times I tried to make Pho I was overwhelmed…rather go drive a few miles and spend 5 bux
I pho lazy, so I always just go out for pho.
I’ve been wondering how to make this dish… I always have this one outside and it tastes super, especially on rainy days! Yours look wonderful and yummi…
Next time you’re in town (LA/OC) I need to take you to Little Saigon, with Ann Le if possible. She wrote the “Little Saigon Cookbook” and is expert in all things Vietnamese that’s edible!
J, I have this book an it is an absolute treasure! I wish I was there to enjoy a big bowl of pho with you.
Jaden, I hope you don’t mind-I tagged you for being interesting!
at http://fromargentinawithlove.typepad.com/from_argentina_with_love/
I LOVE pho, and am super happy that this doesn’t include any lemon grass, which I’m allergic to! Bookmarked to be tried next weekend!
Un-pho-king believable! I love Pho and used to eat it at least once a week in California, have yet to find a place around here. I’m gonna try out the chicken version. Thanks!
I am so glad to see this step by step. I have always wanted to try pho, but have been too pho-king intimidated! I am on the hunt for those bags of bones!
Now that’s love! Vietnamese cuisine is probably my favorite and you have no idea how this bowl of soup makes me happy!
Oh, Jaden, I love me some pho!
I just don’t love the smell of the bones when I do the first boiling—you know when you get all the gick to come out before you dump out the water, rinse the bones, scrub the pot and start over with fresh water.
So, I only make it in spring, summer or fall when I can have all the windows in the house OPEN to get that smell out! Few cooking smells bug me as much as the smell of the beef blood boiling out of bones. UGH!
But the results are fantastic.
BTW–I love those cookbooks, too! They are great.
Now I feel the need to make some pho as soon as spring arrives. We can have a pho party to celebrate the first bloom of the crocus!
I just bought this cookbook because it fit all of my finicky requirements – 1) the author must be native of or have lived in the country for a longer period of time than it requires to get drunk and fraternize with the locals, 2) there must be stories!, and 3) the recipes have to taste good, duh!
I actually just finished my last bowl of this exact Pho Bo not 6 hours ago. When I made the broth, after fine straining there were still little bits in the broth. In comes my personal quote “Laziness is the mother of invention.” So INVENTIVELY, I grabbed a clean towel and strained through that.
Also a large stock pot with a spaghetti strainer insert is AWESOME for initial large stuff removal.
My secret? I simmer for over 6-8 hours (usually overnight), whereupon the “scum” mysteriously collapses back into the broth, and then I strain, then cool, then skim the sheet of pure fat that collects on the top, then strain again. OCD works miracles.
I’ve been looking for a good solid pho recipe for awhile now, and this is the most comprehensive one I’ve found!! Pho is definitely my favorite food…I would eat it every single day if I could afford that, but spring break is coming up, and I’m very excited to try out this recipe!
hmmm… i will have to share this with my (vietnamese) mother and see what she thinks of the recipe. she makes a mean bowl of pho. it’s a shame i never really learned much vietnamese cuisine from her. and she is one of those cooks who never writes down a recipe!!! i should get her to write a cookbook
everyone is always telling her she needs to open a restaurant, but she doesn’t want to do that. i swear she is one of the best cooks i know, and i’m not just saying that b/c i’m her offspring 
i’m also surprised you didn’t talk about the intonation involved in pronouncing the word. when pronounced properly, it sounds like you are asking a question. kind of like “HUH?!”
Ahh…I just returned to the States after 3 months in Ha Noi. I live in an area where I can’t even get westernized/bastardized Pho, so your post is a godsend. Using your instructions and a bit of ingenuity it’s simmering as I type…smells like victory!
For the pho spice, the ingredients include “6 whole cloves” … 6 whole cloves of what?! Will I be able to find this in an asian market too?
Thanks so much for posting this recipe!! I’m so anxious to try it!!!! <3333333
Cloves are a common spice. So look for the spice called cloves, either at the Asian market or at the standard supermarket.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clove
once, when i was about to make pho, my viet friend stopped me, telling me about a viet myth. supposedly, if a non-viet person tried to make the noodle soup, it would taste like blood or worms or something equally disgusting. and as absurd as it was, it scared the heck outta me and i didn’t attempt it. but maybe…maybe, i’ll throw caution to the winds this time. nice pics!
I was able to get a Pho recipe from my friend’s mom. She left out a few spices compared to your receipe, everything else was exactly the same. Excellent recipe! I’m guessing she didn’t know how to describe the rest of them to us.
I had one question though… How do you prevent scum from overtaking the pho when I pour hot soup over raw beef slices? I skim and skim and skim when boiling the soup and when it comes time to eat, with raw beef slices, it’s everywhere! The raw beef at the end just wastes all my efforts. It gets all mixed in with the meat and noodles! Yuck. How do they do it at the restaurant? Any suggestions?
Sunny: Try slowly ladling the soup in the bowl instead of pouring.
Gentler, the better!
I’m making my first batch as I type, about an hour to pho.. Jaden, you rock !!!! and you’re gorgeous!
This is excellent! I’ve been dying to make my own pho. I will try it this weekend. I normally boil the stock for 2 hours. Who knew an extra hour would make a big diff!
Thanks so much for sharing!
We love Pho. My husband and I always eat at a Vietnamese Restaurant in San Mateo. Every time I go to San Mateo we eat at this restaurant since the time they open. I don’t go to other restaurant anymore. Their Pho was very good, there is no comparison with the Vietnamese Restaurant in my area. I was looking for recipes in the internet and found some recipes. I just started cooking the broth. Now that I found this website I will try another recipe. I ordered the book authored by Andrea Nguyen and also got Mai Pham. I’m excited to make this recipe. What is the Pho seasoning? Help! Please explain the Pho seasoning.
I LOVE Pho!!! I am so glad to have found this recipe. I am five months pregnant and crave this daily. Im making some at the moment. Except, the lady at the vietnamese market told me to use only half of the pho seasoning packet so im not sure what to do about that. Use the whole thing or half?????? I know it wasnt easy dividing it up.
Depends on if pack of spices is meant to be made with a big ass pot of water. Normally, when Vietnamese make pho at home, they simmer a gigantic pot. What size pot are you using?
So I just got sdone making my pho and to me it tastes like the way the Pho seasoning packet smells and my broth was clear at first but I let it cook and extra hour and for some reason it turned a light brown. Any ideas why this happened to me?? Anything I should have done different?
Alicia – It’s perfectly normal! How did it taste?
To me it tasted a little to much like that season bag, the way it smelled if you know what I mean. I used almost the whole thing. The next day it wasnt as bad, I diluted it with water a tad bit. I eat mine with a whole lime, I LOVE lime and cilantro. I like to use that oil with the crushed red pepper in it and I bought some from the HOng KOng market but to me it didnt taste the same as the kind I use at this place I am a regular customer at called “Pho Vietnam” so I didnt really use it. Now I need to master the Salad roll with peanut sauce…LOL cause it was missing that. My lady calls it salad roll and puts shrimp, lettuce, bean sprout, noodlles and vietnamese pork YUMMY!!!! I LOVE her’s
Oh! I used I think a 12qt pot
So today I went to the hong kong market to get the things I need to make pho again and this vietnamese lady told me not to add the mesh bag untill 15-30 mins before it’s done. SHE said cook for 3 to 4 hours then add mesh bag for 15-30 mins she also gave me this box that has the 2 mesh bags ready to use called “Pho pasteur” is this accurate information?
The last time I made pho, it tasted to much like the mesh bag of seasoning so im going to “Try” it this way I guess. Can anyone tell me what Lemon grass is and what you use it for? This lady said it was good for the digestive system
Hi Alicia – Lemongrass is an herb – and yes, very healthy for you! I grow it in my backyard.
I don’t know what “Pho Pasteur” is. Let me know how it goes! If it doesn’t taste right, gather the seasonings yourself from good quality spice company and make your own bag. Your previous attempt at pho might have failed because the spices were old.
This recipe is awesome. My broth is coming along nicely as I write this. I actually managed to find the Pho spice package, mesh bag and all, at an asian grocery store in Montreal.
Just want to caution you on the fish sauce. It’s very pungent. I put less than the specified amount and drained the whole thing and restarted my broth from scratch because the fishy smell was too strong to my liking. I usually enjoy fish, but this fish sauce is really fishy, baby !
We’re lucky in Montreal because Vietnamese restaurants abound ! However, it’s always nice to have Vietnamese beef soup at home. I think I’ll fix some spring rolls too !
Thanks for the great and authentic recipe !
I’ve been making Pho for many years and now my wife, who is Lao, and all of her relatives love my Pho better than theirs.
I kick it up a notch though. Try adding 4 – 5 dried hot red chilies to the broth while it simmers. Yum yum!
You are so amazing!
I am a talened amature cook.Most part I have done the same thing as yours. Your techniques are so special that I learned. For example, boiling beef bones in 10 minutes and get rif of first boiling water (I guessed to make clear soup purpose). I roasted ginger and put in soup, but not onion. I will try baked onion, put in soup next time.
Your recipies, detailed techniques, visual pictures (marrow, name of seasoning) would be appreciated to support cook.
Thanks so much
I’ve been searching for a recipe for Pho because I am moving to Augusta where there isn’t any Vietnames restaurants to speak of and wanted to make sure that I could make this dish, not just from memory.
The ingredients are exactly the same as the ones my mother uses when making Pho. It’s really important to do the pre-boil, it makes such a big difference.
Jaden, you did an ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS step-by-step instructions, just the way my mother does it!
Thanks!
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