HOW TO MAKE VIETNAMESE KABOCHA SQUASH AND SHRIMP SOUP | CANH BÍ ĐỎ
Squash soups are perfect for the Autumn season. My squashes come from my green garden, but store-bought squashes work all the same. Vietnamese kabocha squash and shrimp soup is one of my favorite squash soups. It can be enjoyed even without removing the squash’s skin. The majority of recipes for this soup say to remove the skin, but I leave it as it is. The cooking process will soften the skin, so it is perfectly safe to eat, and full of nutrients, too! The sweetness of the kabocha squash together with the sweet taste of shrimp makes this soup perfect for the colder months, but it can definitely be enjoyed year-round as well!
I am particularly picky about the shrimp used for this soup. I recommend using tiger shrimps. A bag of tiger shrimp from Costco is always kept in my freezer because shrimp can be a great seasoning ingredient for soups due to its sweet taste. Tiger shrimps are specifically used for this recipe because it holds better than other kinds of shrimps. If you use other kinds of shrimp, like the smaller ones used in salads, it might fall apart in the cooking process.
Ingredients
- 1 Kabocha squash (approx. 2 lbs)
- 115 grams (4 oz) tiger shrimps
- 4 scallions
- 1/5 cilantro bunch
- 1 gram (1/4 tsp) pepper
- 1.5 ml (1/3 tsp) fish sauce
- 1.2 liters (5 cups) water
SEASONINGS—
- 30 grams (2 tbsp) vegetable seasoning
- 5 grams (1 tsp) chicken seasoning
- 15 grams (1 tbsp) mushroom seasoning
- 10 grams (2 tsp) sugar
Instructions
PREP—
- Wash the squash. Cut in half, clean inside of the squash, and remove the seeds. Do not peel off the skin.
- Cut squash into desirable-size pieces. Set aside.
- Wash shrimps and remove the shells. Finely mince shrimps with white stems of scallions. Place in a bowl. Add fish sauce, peppers, and dashes of all the seasonings. Mix evenly and set aside.
- Wash and dice scallion leaves and cilantro. Set aside.
COOKING—
- Add water to a cooking pot on medium-high heat.
- Once the water comes to a boil, add squash.
- When water comes to a second boil, add shrimps in teaspoon-sized amounts. Do not put all of the shrimp in at once.
- Add seasonings.
- When the soup comes to a third boil, or when squash softens, bring the pot off the stove.
- Add scallion leaves and cilantro.
- Enjoy!
7 comments
Don’t say seasoning if you mean bouillon, the blog is catering to an international audience. I looked all over for mushroom seasoning only to finally realize when I was making it you mean bouillon.
No, I mean seasoning. If you prefer using bouillon, by all means, please do. But, my recipe uses mushroom seasoning, which you will be able to find at any Asian grocery store—it will have the words, “mushroom seasoning,” in English, on the bag.
I love this soup! As soon saw the Kabocha squash one bought one and made this soup. I used powdered chicken bullion for the chicken powder and magic seafood seasoning instead of vegetable seasonings as I was not sure when to find this. I also was more generous with the fish sauce as I love it. I’m so happy to have lots of left overs soup for the week!
Hello Sau,
I don’t know what I did wrong, but mine came out very thick and “gummy”.
Laura, are you referring to the soup? If so, I’m wondering if maybe you used squash that was too soft, and thus would break easily when stirred. This might cause the soup to thicken.
Hello Sau! What are vegetable and chicken powders? And what brand do you use? I’ve never used them before and want to try this recipe! 🙂
Cathy, I’m so sorry—I somehow missed your question! Hopefully you were able to find them after all this time! But if you haven’t and are still searching, you can walk into pretty much any Asian grocery store and they should be able to point you towards vegetable and chicken powders. The brands I use changes depending on what’s available in the stores.