Hello, everyone. My name is Lisa, and I’m The Viet Vegan
because I’m Viet and I’m vegan. And I’m also not a chef.
I’m just a home cook.
I am a content creator slash recipe developer.
I post vegan recipes on my blog,
TheVietVegan.com, and Mercy For Animals has me here showing you some delicious food.
Today, I’m making a Vietnamese vermicelli bowl.
A lot of people see this
known as bún in restaurants. It’s really easy to make at home.
It’s probably one of my favorite dishes to, like, order at a restaurant.
You can easily make it at home,
and it’s very easy to meal-prep if that’s something that you’re into.
You have your rice vermicelli. You have a bunch of different toppings.
It’s saucy. It’s fresh. You can eat it kind of like a salad.
You can eat it
kind of warm—depends on your mood.
So the main component for this bowl is,
of course, rice noodles and lemongrass tofu.
Traditionally, in Vietnamese culture,
there are a bunch of different versions of, like, proteins that go on top of this.
You could put spring rolls on this.
I have a recipe for vegan spring rolls if you want that.
But today I won’t be doing that.
We’re sticking with lemongrass tofu. And lemongrass tofu is so good.
If you’ve never had lemongrass before, it’s like… Well,
it kind of tastes like grassy lemons.
It is very herbal.
It’s in the aromatic family.
It is a very common aromatic used in Vietnamese food.
It is so delicious,
one of my favorite… Herbs? Aromatics? Spices? But it is super, super delicious.
Let’s get started with making it. To start,
let’s cook some rice vermicelli.
These are the ones I always have in the house.
They’re really nice thin rice noodles,
and they cook up to be really nice and chewy.
Add the noodles to a large pot of boiling water, and stir
to cook. The noodles cook fairly quickly and only take about five to six minutes,
depending on how high you’ve got your heat on.
I usually take a noodle and taste to check. You want them to be tender and chewy,
and that way they’ll absorb the sauce better.
Overcooked noodles will break and will probably make for a very watery
vermicelli bowl.
Once the noodles are cooked, drain immediately
into a colander and rinse with cold water.
Add back to the pot and submerge
in cold water to further halt the cooking process.
Then grab small portions to drain in the colander.
I usually lay them out in a crisscross pattern
so that the noodles are drained,
and then they’re easier to separate once they’re fully drained.
Otherwise, you’ll have one massive noodle clump that you have to break apart to eat.
Cover with a plate
and let drain for about 30 minutes while you prepare the rest of the noodle bowl.
One of the toppings for this vermicelli bowl is mung bean sprouts.
You can eat them fresh, steamed, or blanched.
I prefer the texture of them blanched,
so I usually add them to a pot of boiling water
for about three minutes until they’re softened. And I drain and then set aside.
Next, chop up some lettuce. I’m using red leaf
lettuce here, but green leaf, romaine, or iceberg works too.
Next, we’ll make the sauce, which is traditionally a seasoned
fish sauce, but I’m using a vegan fish sauce today.
You can also use soy sauce if you don’t have access to vegan fish sauce.
I have measurements for both versions and a recipe on TheVietVegan.com.
We’ll start with garlic, bird’s eye chili, and a bit of sugar.
The sugar in the mortar and pestle helps absorb the oils from the chili
and makes the pounding process a little bit easier.
Once you have a nice uniform, mostly smooth paste, transfer it to a clean
jar and add boiling water, the remaining sugar, vegan fish sauce, and lime juice.
Stir to dissolve the sugar, and now your sauce is ready.
Now let’s make the lemongrass tofu.
Start with dicing some shallots.
You can use regular cooking onion here, but shallots tend to mean meltier and sweeter
for this dish.
Next, I’m cutting up some fried tofu into thin slices.
You can also use soy curls, seitan, or tempeh, but lemongrass tofu is a classic.
Feel free to use frozen tofu, as the extra pockets from the freezing
process absorb the flavor really well.
You’ll also need some lemongrass.
I’m using frozen lemongrass, since it’s easier to find,
but you can use fresh lemongrass too.
This recipe would need about two to three stalks of lemongrass using the bottom
white bulby parts, finely sliced and blitzed in a food processor before cooking.
Start by sautéing the shallots in some oil, and then add the lemongrass.
You’ll see the shallots and lemongrass start to look
a little bit more tender and melted, and then add the minced garlic.
Then add your sliced fried tofu, soy sauce, and a bit of water if
your pan is starting to look dry like mine did.
Toss everything together,
and cook until your tofu is heated through and well coated in the aromatic mixture.
Taste and adjust for seasoning if you want it
saltier, and add black pepper to finish.
Now that we’ve got all the ingredients prepared, let’s put it together.
So we’re going to start off with some lettuce.
You can use whatever lettuce you want here.
I personally like a nice red leaf lettuce,
so that’s what I’m using.
You can add a bit of the leafy bits,
a bit of the crunchy bits. Add as much as you want
or as little as you want. Next, we add the noodles.
Because of the way that I have separated them,
they’re easier to grab. It’s wonderful.
So I’m grabbing two kind of big clumps here.
Next, we want our bean sprouts.
So like I said, I prefer cooking these,
mostly because I like the texture of them cooked.
You can eat them fresh.
I’m also pregnant right now, so I can’t eat them fresh.
Cook them for safety or preference, whichever you prefer.
So we’re just going to add
some bean sprouts in there.
Then we’re going to add our lemongrass tofu.
So this is, like, super easy to customize.
You can add as much or as little onion, soy sauce, lemongrass—as much as you want.
You can add even more garlic if you want.
And in terms of protein, you can use tofu.
You can use seitan.
I have, like, a washed-flour seitan recipe on my blog that you can use as well.
You can use chickpeas, honestly, if you want to.
Might be difficult to eat, but it’s an option.
Soy curls is also another option.
If you have access to vegan ground meat products,
then you can sort of form those into, like, meatballs or, like, patties
and then cook them in the same sort of mixture-seasoning as well.
I’m also going to add some pickled daikon and carrot.
These are quick-pickled carrots.
I also have a recipe for this on TheVietVegan.com.
I didn’t make it as a recipe today because I almost always have it
chillin’ in my fridge.
So we’re just going to add a bunch of that to this—adds a nice bit of color.
Then we’re going to add some cucumber and then some cilantro.
I like adding some chopped cilantro on top because that’s just how I do.
And so that is the bowl.
I’m using a vegan fish sauce here, which is with this vegan fish sauce bottle.
If you don’t have access to this, I have a soy sauce version on my blog as well.
This is the soy sauce that I use. If you’re gluten-free,
just use a gluten-free tamari and adjust the seasoning as needed,
because usually this vegan fish sauce is, like, saltier than the soy sauce.
So I have two different versions on my blog, on the same blog post,
depending on which one you’re using.
So this is the bowl. Pretty proud of it.
not going to lie—it looks pretty beautiful.
And then you’re going to pour some sauce onto this.
I personally am very generous with my sauciness.
Now, if you like it spicy,
you can feel free to add, like, a garlic-chili sambal on top.
I did not do that today because my sauce is actually quite spicy.
You can then ruin it by just mixing it all together.
If you also have, like, fried shallots
or, like, fried onions, garlic bits, that would also be very delicious on this.
And you can add more lettuce, more greens, herbs, more herbs on top if you want to.
Thai basil is also a great time on this. But I’m just going with cilantro and
cucumber today. It’s kind of like a noodle salad,
I guess. You can eat it warm,
like I said. This is a very common lunch,
perfect for summer or for when you’re just craving, you know, something fresh,
something tasty.
Lots of textures.
Lots of flavors. My mouth is just watering because I just want to eat more.
But anyway, I hope you try this recipe.
I hope you like it and recreate it at home or find some vegan restaurant
that is Vietnamese with this option for you.
My recipe is dope, so you should just make it yourself.
Thank you so much for watching, and I hope you enjoy this recipe.
If you want to follow me on any social media,
I am The Viet Vegan pretty much everywhere.
I have another recipe
for Mercy For Animals coming up soon, so please stay tuned for that.
Have a delicious time making some good, good vegan food.