You could spend a month in Thailand trying the best Thai Noodle dishes every day! If you are done trying the best Thai appetizers, check out this list of best Thai noodle dishes and rice meals.
Noodle meals, or “guay tiew” as Thais call them, are usually a popular option for locals while dining out. If you want to learn how to prepare Thai food, most noodle recipes are also straightforward. Popular noodle meals in Thailand include Pad Thai, Guay Tiew Reua, and Pad Kee Mao, however this is only the beginning of the huge range of noodle dishes available.
There are numerous noodle recipes that use a certain type of noodle, but there are also many dishes where you may pick the type of noodle. In this tutorial, we will discuss the many varieties of noodles and the recipes that may be cooked with them.
Thailand’s various noodle dishes
There are several dishes where you may choose the type of noodles you wish to use. These are made from the most prevalent noodles in Thailand. In Thai, the word “Sen” refers to the actual noodle and is commonly used to denote rice noodles.
Sen Yai: “Yai” means “large,” and this is a wide flat noodle.
Sen Lek: “Lek” means “little,” and it is so named because it is a thin noodle.
Sen Mii: This noodle is even thinner and a little tougher.
Bamee: This is egg noodle.
Mama: These are ready-to-eat noodles. While it may seem unusual, these noodles are frequently used in salads and noodle meals.
Served with or without soup
There are Thai noodle meals that incorporate meats, meatballs, gravy or “rad na,” and come in many sorts of soups that can be spicy, sweeter, cooked with a stock base, or even with pig blood! Pad Thai or Pad See Ew may come to mind if you’re seeking for dry noodle recipes. If you want a curry foundation, try “Nam Ngiew” or “Kao Soi.” For a sweeter, more flavorful noodle dish, try “kuay tiew rua,” a soup composed of pig’s blood.
Try out the best Thai noodle dishes in Thailand
No matter which city you visit in Thailand, you will come across a plethora of noodle shops. Noodle restaurants may be located all across the nation, even during the hottest months of the year!
When it comes to different varieties of soup, noodles, toppings, and sides, several areas may prefer or have distinct preferences. The most common Thai noodle meal is a bone marrow stock soup with some pig meatballs; this is the standard one that you can obtain anywhere, however you will also have the option of noodle width, soup style, and meat selections. Explore the various kinds available in different places. Enjoy your trip to Thailand by eating some tasty, aromatic noodles!
Sugar, fish sauce, vinegar, and dried chilli flakes are common condiments that can be found anywhere you go to flavor your noodles to your liking. Season to taste and enjoy!
Best Thai Noodle Dishes
1. Pad Thai
Pad thai is without a doubt the most well-known dish, and the best of the best Thai noodle dishes, on this Thai cuisine guide. It’s likely to be the first item many visitors seek for when they arrive in Thailand for the first time.
Pad thai is a stir-fried rice noodle dish prepared with chicken, shrimp, tofu, scrambled egg, peanuts, bean sprouts, and other vegetables. The ingredients are thrown together in a pan before being seasoned with a sauce comprised of tamarind juice, fish sauce, garlic, palm sugar, dried shrimp, and red chilis. When it’s done, it’s commonly topped with crushed toasted peanuts and served with lime wedges.
Pad thai is a popular tourist dish, so you can obtain it as easily from street food carts as from respectable sit-down restaurants. It’s popular for its taste balance. It’s acidic, salty, and sweet all at the same time.
2. Guay Tiew Reua
Boat noodles, one of Bangkok’s most popular Thai street food noodle meals, are referred to as guay tiew reua. It serves a highly flavored soup cooked with pig or cow blood.
Boat noodles are named by the Thai words guay tiew, which means “noodles,” and reua, which means “boat.” The name refers to how the food was prepared and marketed in Bangkok during the mid-twentieth century. Vendors in small boats would navigate Bangkok’s canals, selling little bowls of delicious Thai noodle soup.
Guay tiew reua is cooked using several varieties of noodles, as well as beef, pig, pickled bean curd, meatballs, liver, and a variety of herbs and spices. If you like strong tastes, you should try a bowl of boat noodles in Bangkok.
3. Goong Ob Woon Sen
Goong ob woon sen is a Thai meal prepared of glass noodles and prawns that has been cooked with a lot of garlic, ginger and pepper. The ingredients are cooked together in a saucepan and served in the same pot in which they were prepared.
When cooked with crab, the dish is known as poo ob woon sen, and both variations are available at many Bangkok seafood restaurants.
4. Khao Soi
If you could only eat one meal in Chiang Mai, it should definitely be khao soi. It’s a noodle soup with crunchy and soft egg noodles in a creamy, curry-like sauce sweetened with coconut milk. Northern Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar are big fans of it.
The northern Thai form of khao soi is usually cooked with chicken or beef, although it can also be made with pork, shrimp, or fish. It’s typically accompanied by pickled cabbage, chopped red onions, and a slice of lime. If you want to add some crunch to your khao soi, toss in a packet of pork rinds.
Khao soi is one of the best Thai noodle dishes in Thailand, it’s especially an all-time favorite northern Thai cuisine.
5. See Ew Pad
Pad see ew is a stir-fried noodle dish that is popular in Thailand. Consider it the Thai equivalent of char koay teow in Malaysia.
Pad see ew is cooked using kuaitiao sen yai, a wide rice noodle. Light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, garlic, Chinese broccoli, egg, tofu, and some form of meat are also included. The most common protein is beef, although it can also be cooked with pig, chicken, or shrimp.
Pad see ew is a famous Thai street food dish that can be found almost anyplace in Thailand.
6. Pad Kee Mao
Another popular Thai street food noodle dish is pad kee mao, sometimes known as “drunken noodles.” It’s a stir-fried wide noodle dish that’s quite similar to pad see ew, but with the addition of fiery chiles, baby corn, and sweet Thai basil.
I always figured pad kee mao was made with alcohol because of the name, but it isn’t. Kee mao translates to “drunkard,” however the origins of the term are unknown. According to one common idea, the meal gained its name from its popularity as after drinking snack. I can notice it after eating pad kee mao after a night of drinking in Bangkok.
Jay Fai, the street food icon, created this wonderfully appetizing-looking platter of pad kee mao. You should definitely taste her cuisine.
7. Nam Ngiaw
Nam ngiaw is a Shan noodle soup that is popular in northeastern Myanmar, northern Thailand, and China’s southern Yunnan province. Nam ngiaw, commonly cooked using khanom jeen rice noodles, is recognized for its sharp, acidic, and spicy characteristics.
Aside from rice noodles, the major components in nam ngiaw include beef or pork, as well as chicken or pork blood cake. The sourness comes from diced tomatoes, while the heat comes from roasted or fried dried chilis.
Tua nao, a type of fermented soy bean commonly found in northern Thai cuisine, is another major component in nam ngiaw. It’s a plant-based condiment that’s frequently used in place of shrimp paste.
8. Yen Ta Fo
The term yen ta fo refers to a pink-colored Thai noodle soup. It’s essentially the Thai equivalent of Chinese yong tau foo.
Fermented soybean paste gives yen ta fo its trademark pinkish colour. It not only turns the broth a light red color, but it also adds a delicious, almost floral flavor to the soup. The meal is created using sen yai noodles, which are also used in pad see ew and pad kee mao, as well as morning glories, tofu, fish balls, pork, and blood cake.
Some visitors may be put off by the pink soup, but yen ta fo is a unique and excellent meal. It has a savory and sour flavor with a slight sweetness from the fermented soybean paste.
9. Khao Pad
Thai-style fried rice is referred known as khao pad. It’s traditional in central Thai cuisine, although there are numerous regional variations, including green curry fried rice, American fried rice, and the famous pineapple fried rice seen below.
Khao pad, unlike Chinese fried rice, is frequently cooked using fragrant jasmine rice, which gives it a unique flavor. Thai-style fried rice is often cooked with some form of meat (such as chicken, shrimp, or crab), an egg, onions, garlic, and sometimes tomatoes. It’s frequently served with sliced cucumber and prik nam pla, a spicy sauce composed with bird’s eye chile, fish sauce, and garlic.
10. Pad Krapow
Pad kra pow (also known as phat kaphrao) is a famous Thai dish. It’s a Thai dish made with seasoned ground meat, such as pig, chicken, or beef, stir-fried with Thai basil and garlic.
Pad kra pow is a popular lunch meal in Thailand, and it is readily available in restaurants and food courts. It is often served with steaming white rice and a Thai-style fried egg on top (with crispy browned edges).
Pad kra pow is a popular Thai comfort dish, similar to American cheeseburgers, Japanese tamago kake gohan, and Taiwanese lu rou fan.
11. Khao Ka Moo
Another popular dish in this list of best Thai noodle dishes and rice meals is khao ka moo. It originated as a Teochew meal of braised pork leg cooked with Chinese five spice. The beef is cooked until fork tender before being served with steamed rice and a medium-boiled egg.
Khao ka moo is a popular dish in Thailand that can be found almost anywhere, from street food carts to food courts to genuine sit-down restaurants. We enjoyed this wonderful meal of khao ka moo from Chiang Mai’s famed Cowboy Hat Lady.
