Pho Chay. Vegan Pho. Pho is a beautiful Vietnamese soup that requires you to make your own stock. You are not allowed to use store-bought veggie broth for this, I’m sorry - I don’t make the rules. But you can’t just show up and disrespect the process. Usually this dish is made very reliant on meat. So we’re working double time today.

As always, if you dig this recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and you can tell me about how you made it with store-bought broth anyway.

Vegan Pho. There will be no ‘Pho’ jokes in this recipe.

VEGAN PHO

prep time: 1 hour
cook time: 3 hours

Yes it takes four hours but you’ve got to respect the stock.

Again, this recipe requires you to make your own stock. The meaty portions of the dish will be a blend of dried mushrooms and (optional) gardein beef tips. Then you add your toppings. Very important stuff.

So you’re going to start your components that will make up your stock. First we will start with the things that need to be toasted. You will have stock leftover after this and that is for your benefit. Store in the fridge for a few days, freeze for whenever.

What you’ll need:

star anise
cardamom pods
coriander seeds
fennel seeds
cinnamon sticks

In a non-oiled pan add 4 star anise, 3 small sticks of cinnamon, a teaspoon of fennel seeds, 7 cardamom pods, and a whole bunch of coriander seeds. Now of course you can adjust these to your liking but this is how I did it to accentuate the fact we aren’t using bone broth; the spices will shine!

On a medium flame, gently toast all of the seasonings in the pan for about 4-5 minutes until aromatic. Once they are nice and smelly, kill the flame and set aside for now. Keep this pan out because you will need it later.

The next major component of your stock will be ginger and yellow onions.

What you’ll need:

ginger
yellow onions
olive oil
salt
dried mushrooms

Also subtle flex on my lovely new cutting board (thanks Michelle)

Get out a big fat knob of ginger and cut it in half as pictured above. You can cut it into smaller pieces to make halving easier like I did. Quarter 5 yellow onions and leave the skin on.

After you’ve cleaned up that mess you just made, get out a baking sheet and add all of your onion and ginger onto it. Lightly oil everything. Once you’ve done that, you’re going to stick the tray in the oven on the broil setting for about 10 minutes.

You can get them a little darker than this if you would like.

Once the contents of your tray are nice and charred, set it all aside to cool. Add salt to taste.

Next, now that you have your toasted seasonings and charred onion & ginger, it’s time to get the broth going.

In a big pot, add 3 quarts of water. Remember, you will have leftover stock to freeze for later. Bring the water to a gentle simmer and add in all of your toasted seasonings, your onions and your ginger. Give everything a little stir and gently bring up to a boil. Gently.

Soon all of this will become something beautiful. I mean it’s beautiful now too but still.

Once your pot is up to a boil, throw a lid on it and bring it down to a simmer. You're going to let these cook for an hour before even thinking about adding the mushrooms in. In the meantime enjoy what your kitchen smells like.

Now that one hour has gone by and you’ve spent most of the time doom scrolling on your phone, it’s time to pop open the lid on that stock and give everything a stir. Sulk in the smells for a moment. Put your phone down. Okay pick it back up.

For your next trick, you are going to add your dried mushrooms. I used 1.5 ounces worth and a blend of porcini, morels, oyster, lobster, boletes and shiitake. This blend was called the “dried Northwoods mushroom blend” when I purchased it.

Now because this is vegan and vegans overcomplicate things, you’re going to add the mushrooms in with everything else. You will pick the mushrooms out later and discard the rest of your stock components. This way you can continue simmering the rest of your stock components while your mushrooms are introduced to the mix.

Bring the pot back up to a (not super aggressive) boil and leave it there for about ten minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. After your ten minutes are up, bring back down to a simmer and put the lid back on it for another hour.

After that hour has gone by, it’s time for the fun part. Strain out all of the contents of the pot carefully and keep that precious stock you’ve worked so hard on. In your strainer, pick out all of the mushrooms and shake off any coriander that may be stuck to them. Keep all of the mushrooms! Discard everything else! Except the stock obviously.

This part sucks but no reason to end the simmer on everything else for mushrooms only!

Put your pot full of stock back on the burner on a low simmer.

Next, you’re going to get that pan out from earlier and get your proteins going. For this, you can use a meat substitute on top of the mushrooms if you would like. I did it to add more textures, but you don’t have to.

Add some oil into the pan from earlier and bring it up to a nice medium-high. Toss the whole bag of these things in there and cook until dark brown and seared.

Once your meat things are all cooked, transfer them into a bowl for later and put some tin foil on it to keep em warm. Now very importantly, leave all of the stuff in the pan the meat things left behind. Because now you are going to cook your mushrooms in it.

Cook your mushrooms until browned as well. Add salt and pepper to taste. To lift up all the good stuff from the bottom of the pan, add a splash of red wine or cooking vinegar and stir. Once the mushrooms are all cooked, set aside in a bowl and wrap with foil to keep em warm.

Next, it’s time to cook your noodles and get your toppings ready. ALMOST THERE!

What you’ll need:

rice noodles
bean sprouts
jalapeno (or comparable)
lime
cilantro
basil
salt

In a separate bowl, boil some water and cook the rice noodles according to the package. DO NOT COOK THEM IN THE BROTH! For all things sacred! Oh yeah and salt the water too.

Once they are cooked, set the noodles aside and rinse with a little bit of cold water.

Rinse off your cilantro and basil and remove them from the big stems. Little stems are okay. Dice up your chilis and cut up your limes.

Now it’s time to plate everything up. You made it.

In a bowl, add your noodles and then add your mushrooms and gardein things if you used those too,

Next you are going to add your broth without burning yourself and then finishing it off with all of your garnishes. Serve with a hoisin or something of the sort, squirt some lime in there and sulk in the fruits of your labor.

Look how good that looks, are you kidding me?