Amy’s Kitchen Vegan Organic Thai Coconut SoupAmy’s Kitchen has a long reputation of producing healthy vegetarian and organic meals. Amy’s offers frozen foods including entrees, burritos, burgers, pot pies, and pizzas. They also offer canned soups and shelf stable snacks. All of Amy’s products are vegetarian and 120 of Amy’s products are 100% vegan. Amy’s also has Kosher D, Kosher DE, gluten free, soy free, tree nut free, and corn free choices. With so many healthy food choices, it’s no wonder Amy’s has become a household name in the vegan/vegetarian world.

Amy’s does an incredible job of bringing world flavors to your dinner table.  Many of their products are based on East Asian recipes, which is fantastic because as you may or many not know, most East Asian cultures do a lot of vegan cooking. The perfect example of this is Amy’s Thai Coconut Soup, or Tom Kha Phak in Thai, that we’ll be taste testing today. Tom Kha Phak is a traditional soup that you’ll find everywhere in Thailand. It’s difficult to make in the U.S. because many of the ingredients, such as galangal, lemon grass, and lesser galangal, are not readily available. I’ve never seen Tom Kha Phak canned before, so I’m excited to try Amy’s Kitchen’s version and see if it transports me back to Chiang Mai.

Taste Experience – Score: 6.5 out of 10

Close up of Amy’s Kitchen Organic Vegan Thai Coconut Soup

The day I decided to try Amy’s Thai Coconut Soup I was hardcore hankering for Thai food but it was too late to go to a restaurant, so I told my hubby we’re doing Thai-night out of can. I opened a couple of Amy’s Thai Coconut soup cans and immediately smelled the flavors I remembered from the cooking classes I took in Thailand. I picked up strong aromas of galangal, lemon grass, chilies, and lime. The soup also looked like Tom Kha Phak in that it had that creamy coconut milk base with drops of oil all puddled in it. While pouring the soup into the sauce pan I was excited to see hearty chunks of sweet potato and carrots. There were also small bits of tofu in the soup, but they made me a little nervous because they looked like chicken bits. I had my husband try them and he said “don’t worry, no chicken ever tasted this bad, it’s tofu.” There was even a lime leaf that gracefully floated into the sauce pan – what a refreshing surprise from a canned soup!

First sip of the soup and I’m surprised by the creaminess on the front end and the galangal and lime flavors on the tail end. The flavors are way more complex than I expected – creamy, tangy, with a bit of heat. Amy’s Thai Coconut soup doesn’t taste quite as fresh as in Thailand, but it’s still pretty good considering it’s canned soup. It is much saltier than freshly made Thai Coconunt soup and I wish it was a bit spicier. The tofu chunks provide a unique texture and are significantly firmer than I expected. Actually, the tofu may be firmer than any kind I’ve tried before.

Overall Amy’s Kitchen did a good job of canning Tom Kha Phak. My taste rating is a bit low because of how salty the soup is and because I like my Thai Coconunt soup to be spicier (actually, I prefer it to be Thai hot!). Either way, I think you should give Amy’s Thai Coconut soup a try. It’s an easy way to add some authentic Thai flavors to your diet. You can get all of Amy’s soup on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Nutrition – Score: 5 out of 10 (mostly related to high sodium content)

Wholesome ingredients create wholesome nutrition. As with other Amy’s products, the ingredients list on this Thai Coconut soup is comprised of organic real food and spices. This is a big deal in the canned soup world. Several commercial canned soups have a crazy concoction of monosodium glutamate, modified food starch, disodium guanylate, guar gum, and other additives to create more of a science experiment than soup.

Amy’s Thai Coconut Soup is broth based versus bean based. This means you won’t get as much fiber or protein in the Thai Coconut Soup as you would in Amy’s Split Pea, Lentil, or Black Bean soups. That doesn’t mean it’s an awful choice, it just means that you may want consider adding a source of plant-based protein with the soup. For example, you could serve the soup over one cup of brown rice to add four grams of fiber and five grams of protein to make it a quick vegan and gluten free meal that would sustain you longer than the soup alone.

The sodium content of Amy’s Thai Coconut Soup is high. It is a canned soup after all. You’ll find 580 mg of sodium in a half a can (1160 mg of sodium in the whole can). The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that we consume less than 2300 mg of sodium per day while the American Heart Association recommends no more than 1500 mg of sodium per day. Because sodium is present in many foods you wouldn’t expect to have sodium, I recommend limiting your daily sodium intake to 1500 mg with the goal of staying within the 2300 mg recommendation. Some people (like athletes) need more sodium in their diet and you can talk to your health care professional if you feel that you fall into this category. If you’re having a high sodium soup once in a while, it’s not a problem for your health. If you’re having a high sodium can of soup every day for dinner, we should probably talk about some healthier options. Does that make sense? I hope so.

Amy’s Kitchen Organic Vegan Thai Coconut Soup – Ingredients and Nutrition Information

As for fat content, Amy’s Thai Coconut soup has quite the curves on her. Each can contains 20 grams of fat, with 16 of those grams being saturated fat. That’s a lot of saturated fat in one can of soup. Not to worry though, most of the fat in this soup comes from the coconut milk and the fat in coconut milk metabolizes differently than saturated fats in other foods, such as cheese and processed meats. Saturated fats are classified according to the number of carbon atoms in the molecule.  Fats from animal products are mostly long chain saturated fats (14 or more carbon molecules) and are less healthy than short and medium chain saturated fats. The fats in coconut milk are medium chain saturated fats which have been found to actually increase HDL (high density lipids) cholesterol, the good kind of cholesterol. Even though the saturated fat in coconut milk is better than other fats, it’s still a saturated fat, so eat this soup in moderation.

If you’d like to give Amy’s soups a try, please consider buying them from Amazon and using my link HERE. It’s the same price as going directly to Amazon, but you’ll be helping a fellow vegan by using my link. Thanks!

Ok, let’s see what my carnivore husband has to say. Note: the opinions expressed below are solely of the non-vegan husband and we vegans neither condemn nor condone his statements. Continue at your own risk.

The Non-Vegan Review – Score: 7 out 10

Oh man do I love me some Thai food! My plant-killing wife and I eat Thai at least a few times a month. I’m not much of a soup guy, but it’s nice to know we can get some authentic Thai flavors with Amy’s Thai Coconut soup. The tofu in this soup is unlike any other tofu I’ve had before. It has a similar firmness and texture to tempeh. I suppose Amy’s had to make the tofu very firm so that it doesn’t disintegrate in the can during long storage periods. I did find Amy’s Thai Coconut soup to be pretty salty, so I’d say make this a lunch meal versus a dinner meal, because no one wants a salt bomb before bedtime. Non-vegan husband out.

Parting Thoughts

Amy’s Kitchen Thai Coconut Soup offers familiar home cooked Thai flavors in a ready to-go canned soup. Although there is a significant amount of sodium, there is potentially less sodium and certainly less money spent than if you went out to eat. The soup is rich in flavor and complexity to warm you heart and soul. You can get all of Amy’s soups on Amazon by clicking HERE. Same price as going directly to Amazon, but by using my link you’ll be supporting this website and a fellow vegan. Thanks for swinging by!

Amy’s Kitchen Thai Coconut (Tom Kha Pak) Soup Review

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