Thai · Chicken
Tom kha gai
About this recipe
Thai cooking balances four flavours in every dish — sweet, sour, salty, spicy — anchored to the day's market. Fish sauce, fresh herbs, chiles, citrus, and palm sugar are the constants; the rest changes with what's freshest.
As a chicken dish, Tom kha gai is forgiving enough to roast whole, braise in pieces, or quick-cook for a weeknight dinner — chicken accepts most techniques without losing its character.
The scaler above resizes every ingredient to the number of servings you actually want; Cook Mode walks you through the recipe one step at a time with hands-free timers.
Recipe data is sourced from TheMealDB's open community database; ScaleRecipe handles the curation, the scaling math, the editorial commentary, and the conversion utilities woven into each page.
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Method
- step 1
- Pour the chicken stock and coconut milk into a large saucepan set over a medium heat. Tip in the galangal, lemongrass and lime leaves, and bring to a gentle simmer, around 6-8 mins. Keeping at a gentle simmer, add the chicken. Cook for 8-10 mins until tender and cooked through.
- step 2
- Stir in the mushrooms and chillies, and simmer for a further 3-5 mins until everything is cooked through. Sprinkle in the sugar and 3 tbsp each of the fish sauce and lime juice. Taste and add the remaining if required.
- step 3
- Remove the galangal, lemongrass and lime leaves before serving using a slotted spoon. Ladle into bowls and serve with coriander leaves sprinkled over and steamed rice on the side. Will keep chilled for up to three days. Leave to cool first.
Cooking notes
When scaling protein-led dishes, weigh the meat rather than counting pieces, and remember that the pan size limits how much you can sear at once.
For volume-to-weight conversions of any ingredient — flour, sugar, butter, salts — use the ingredient converter. To translate the recipe's oven temperature between °C, °F and gas mark, see the temperature converter.
When you scale this recipe up or down, remember that cooking time does not scale linearly. A doubled cake takes longer, but not twice as long; a doubled soup takes roughly twice as long. The cooking-time guide gives sensible starting estimates by dish geometry.
Scaling notes
Scaling Tom kha gai
Tom kha gai is written for around four servings as it stands on this page — scaling it up for a party or down for a meal-for-one is the small math problem most home cooks face every week. Here's how this particular dish responds to scaling, what changes linearly, and what doesn't.
Tom kha gai scales gracefully because chicken is forgiving — both the cooking method and the timing apply per piece rather than per total weight. The non-linear rule still applies to seasoning: at 2× volume use 1.5× the salt and spices, not full double, because flavour concentration intensifies as batch size grows.
Skip the math entirely — ScaleRecipe's scaler rewrites every ingredient line above with proper culinary fractions and smart unit promotion the moment you change the serving count. Open the scaler →
Beyond the recipe
Substitutions & make-ahead — Tom kha gai
If you're cooking Tom kha gai for a future meal (or doubling up for leftovers), here's how this dish handles storage, reheating, and the timing decisions most recipes don't spell out.
Make-ahead, storage, and reheating
Tom kha gai tolerates make-ahead better than most home cooks expect. Cooked chicken keeps 3-4 days refrigerated and freezes well for up to 3 months. Reheat in a low oven (around 300 °F / 150 °C) covered, with a splash of broth — microwave reheating dries out lean breast meat especially. If the sauce is dairy-based (cream, yogurt), warm gently over low heat and stir as it comes back together; high heat breaks the emulsion.
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Tom kha gai
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Volume
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OpenTemperature
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OpenCooking time
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OpenPan size
9-inch round vs 8-inch square vs 13×9. The math is surface area, not diameter — and the converter shows you both.
OpenLength
Inches and centimetres — for when a recipe says “cut into 1-inch pieces” and your ruler is metric.
OpenIngredient density
A cup of flour weighs 120 g; a cup of honey weighs 340. The full table of ~40 staples, with sources.
OpenOpen in main scaler
Edit the recipe text, scale by serving count, and copy the result. Same parser as the in-page scaler, more room to work.
OpenFrom the journal
Original essays on the small details.
The why behind the technique — original writing on the ingredient and equipment choices that separate a good cook from a frustrated one.
Reading a recipe like a chef
The 30-or-so recipe terms that show up most often, decoded
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Cooking for one — scaling principles
The math, the practical realities, and the recipes designed for one from the start
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How long do leftovers actually last?
Beyond the USDA's 3–4 days: the variables that actually determine the safe window
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Go deeper
Where this recipe sits in the wider tradition.
Each guide below is a real essay on the cuisine or the category — pillars, staples, techniques worth learning — paired with a curated grid of recipes filed under it.
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