My Mom’s Bun Rieu (Vietnamese Crab Noodle Soup)

Bun Rieu is a popular Vietnamese noodle soup characterized by its vibrant red color and spoonfuls of crab paste mixed with eggs. Included in this recipe is a detailed guide on how to make my family’s bun rieu recipe, and how to customize it to your tastes!

My go to comfort food will always be some type of Vietnamese noodle soup. Every time I eat a bowl, it reminds me of home in LA which I don’t get back to that much. One of my favorites is Bun Rieu. Bun Rieu is a noodle soup with a pork-based broth filled with tons of tomatoes and topped with a crab paste/egg mixture. It’s an unusual combination, but I promise you everyone whose tried it loves it. I also think it is better than Vietnamese favorites like pho and ca ri ga.

Why Bun Rieu is my favorite

Bun Rieu is a popular noodle soup in Vietnam and one of my personal favorites. It is characterized by a pork-based broth that has tomatoes, onions, dried shrimp, and a crab paste/egg mixture as a topping. All the ingredients give the broth a balance of salty and sweet flavors. The pork and dried shrimp make the broth sweet while the crab paste makes it a little bit salty. It is then served with vermicelli noodles and topped with vegetables and sometimes shrimp paste. I personally love to go simple with my toppings, so I just add green onions and sometimes cha lua for extra flavor.

Some details for key ingredients

• Pork – I love using pork shoulder for this broth because of the fat content which gives this broth a richer flavor. However, you can use almost any cut of pork for this broth. I would just make sure the pork has a good amount of fat and/or bone to help get that rich flavor. A good substitute for pork shoulder is pork butt.
• Onion – A good substitute for yellow onion is white onion.
• Dried shrimp – If you can’t find dried shrimp, I would add half a pound of fresh shrimp.
• Chili powder & scallions – A mixture of red chili powder and scallions help give the soup its red color. If you can’t find chili powder, I would recommend substituting for paprika.
• Roma tomatoes – You can use any kind of tomatoes for this recipe, but roma tomatoes are the best kind to use for bun rieu. This is the one I use because it gives the broth the best flavor.
• Chicken broth – Adds more saltiness and sweetness to the broth.
• Vermicelli noodles – Vermicelli noodles are the best kind of noodles to use for this recipe. They have the best texture and soak up the soup very well. Check out my post on how to cook vermicelli for a detailed guide on how to cook this ingredient. If you can’t find vermicelli noodles, I would use any kind of thin rice noodle.

How to make Bun Rieu

1. First par boil the pork. Put the pork into a large soup pan. Cover the pork with water until it just covers the pork. Bring the water to a boil. Once the water boils, take out the pork and set aside. Pour out the water. Transfer the pork back into the soup pan and cover it with fresh water. This process will help to clean the pork and produce a clear broth.
   • Tip #1: For the cleanest, clearest broth, clean your pot after pouring out the water.
2. Add in the onion, dried shrimp, and the salt. Bring the water to a boil. Reduce to low heat and simmer the soup for an hour.
   • Tip #2: As the soup is simmering, make sure to scoop away any impurities. This is another key to a clear broth.
3. While the soup is simmering, combine the 1 tablespoon of green onions, chili powder, and 2 teaspoons of oil in a pan. Cook for 10 seconds and set aside. Watch the green onions carefully because they burn easily.
4. Once the soup has simmered for an hour, add this mixture to the soup with the tomatoes. This mixture and the tomatoes will help give the soup its signature red color. Simmer for 30 minutes. As the soup is simmering, combine the eggs and crab paste in a small bowl. Whisk together and set aside.
5. Once the soup has simmered for 30 minutes, add in the egg/crab paste mixture, chicken broth, and fish sauce. Stir everything together. Once the egg and crab mixture floats to the top of the soup, the soup should be done (10-15 minutes).
6. Taste the soup to make sure there is enough flavor in the soup. If it tastes bland, add more fish sauce to the soup. At this point, you can cut up the pork shoulder into bite sized pieces and add them back to broth. I personally just break it up with my ladle because they’re so tender.
7. Now it’s time to put it all together. Add some cooked vermicelli noodles to a bowl. Ladle some soup over the noodles. Make sure to add some of the crab egg mixture, tomatoes, and pork pieces to your bowl. Garnish with green onions and a squeeze of lime before serving.
   • Tip #3: As an extra dollop of flavor, add a small spoonful of shrimp paste to your bowl. I do this!

Optional toppings

There are a lot of different variations on what you can add to your bowl of noodles. I personally like to keep it simple, so I just add a sprinkle of green onions. However, sometimes I add additional toppings like cha lua, fried tofu, shredded cabbage, Vietnamese coriander, and bean sprouts. Use what you like and leave out what you don’t like.

Additional tips for the best bun rieu

1. The longer you simmer the broth, the tastier it will be. The fact is soup tastes better the next day, and that’s because the liquid has had more time to take on the flavors of all the ingredients. You can simmer broths for as long as you want, and the more time you simmer, the tastier the broth will be. I would just be careful about heating the broth so much it boils. Boiling the broth for long periods of time will make it cloudy. That means you definitely need to check on it from time to time.
2. What do you do if you forget to add something? If you watch the video, this is exactly what happened to me. I forgot to add the tomatoes with the chili powder mixture, so I added them at the end (when I finally remembered). Soup is really forgiving, so I wouldn’t panic. Just them to the soup and let it simmer until the soup is done. If what you added hasn’t cooked through, let it sit in the pot for 10-15 minutes and it should be done. I did this with the tomatoes. The only exception to this rule is pork, since pork takes at least an hour to cook!

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