Bún Thang: Hanoi Noodle Soup with Chicken, Egg Ribbons and Shrimp Floss

Bún Thang: Many Fine Toppings, One Clear Broth

White rice noodles sit under a clear broth made from chicken and dried shrimp. On top, in separate small groups, go thin strands of poached chicken, ribbons of yellow egg crepe, strips of giò lụa (Vietnamese pork sausage), a little mound of shrimp floss, shiitake, and chopped scallion with rau răm. Pickled dried radish, fresh chili and citrus wait on the side. That is bún thang, a Hanoi noodle soup in which much of the work happens before the bowl is filled.

The recipe here follows a single published text: "Bún thang chuẩn vị Hà Nội" ("Bún thang, true Hanoi flavor"), a reader-contributed recipe by Phùng Thơm published by VnExpress in August 2021, written for 4–5 people. It is a reader's recipe rather than a test-kitchen recipe, and it has not been kitchen-tested by Sekai Gohan. Two points are deliberately changed for safety: the raw chicken is not rubbed with salt and rinsed, following the Food Safety Commission of Japan's advice not to wash raw chicken, and the chicken's roughly 15-minute poach is treated only as a starting point, with a center temperature of at least 75°C for at least 1 minute as the actual endpoint, following Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

If you know other Vietnamese noodle soups, bún thang sits close to phở gà in its chicken broth, but it is a different bowl from the crab-and-tomato bún riêu or Hanoi's grilled-pork bún chả. For more dishes from the country, see Vietnam.

Ingredients for 4–5 People: Chicken, Bones, Dried Seafood and Fine Toppings

Vietnamese names are given in parentheses so you can search for them at an Asian grocer.

Choosing Ingredients and What Not to Swap

Dried squid tentacles or sá sùng, never both. Use either 2–3 dried squid tentacles or 2–3 sá sùng, not both. This article uses the squid tentacles. If you choose sá sùng instead, use it in place of the squid, not alongside it.

Giò lụa is its own thing. It is a cooked Vietnamese pork sausage. Look for it by name at Vietnamese or Asian grocers rather than quietly replacing it with an ordinary ham.

Fresh bún, not dried noodles. The 1.5 kg is fresh rice vermicelli (bún tươi). Do not substitute dried noodles.

Cà cuống oil is optional. Tinh dầu cà cuống is used only if you can get it. If you don't have it, leave it out; don't add something else in its place.

Seasonings stay distinct. Hạt nêm, bột nêm and gia vị are all Vietnamese seasoning products, but they are separate products and should not be assumed to be the same thing, nor read as plain salt. Fish sauce (nước mắm) in the radish dressing and shrimp paste (mắm tôm) at the table are different products too.

Equipment

• A large pot for poaching the chicken and simmering the broth
• A nonstick frying pan
• A colander
• A knife and separate cutting boards for raw meat and for ready-to-eat foods
• Several bowls
• A mortar and pestle
• A food thermometer for checking the chicken's center temperature

Before You Start: Raw Chicken and Clean Hands

Method: Building the Broth, Then Each Fine Topping

When Something Goes Wrong

Variations Within the Recipe

The recipe offers only one real choice of ingredients: dried squid tentacles or sá sùng in the broth, with this article using the squid. The cà cuống oil is the other optional element, added only if you have it. Because the published text gives no evidence for other swaps, such as different meats, dried noodles or replacement seasonings, none are suggested here. What you can adjust freely is what the recipe already leaves open: the seasoning of the broth, and how much chili, citrus, herbs and mắm tôm each person adds at the table.

Bún Thang in Hanoi: A Bowl Linked with the Days After Tết

Bún thang is presented as a Hanoi dish. Vietnam Tourism, the official site of the Viet Nam National Authority of Tourism, lists it among dishes to try in Hanoi and describes it with Vietnamese ham, shredded chicken, omelette strips and a clear, savory broth. The same page connects it with the days after the Lunar New Year (Tết), when leftover holiday ingredients are turned into a breakfast bowl.

Writer Vĩnh Quyên, in a piece for VOV5 (Voice of Vietnam), recalls her own family's bún thang after Tết, made from ingredients saved across the holiday, such as chicken, dried shrimp, giò lụa and dried radish, with the separate toppings carefully cut, arranged and served hot. This is one family's memory, not proof of a single origin or of a custom shared by every Hanoi household. It does help explain why the dish looks the way it does: festive leftovers become an orderly bowl through careful cutting and a clear broth.

The meaning of the word thang and the dish's historical origins are not covered by the sources used here, so this article does not explain them. Regional and household variations are also not compared; the recipe here is the one Hanoi-style version described above.

Leftovers

Cool leftovers quickly in shallow, clean containers and refrigerate them promptly, at 10°C or below. Keep hot food hot until serving, and reheat leftover broth until it boils before eating. No storage period is given here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why isn't the raw chicken rinsed?

The VnExpress recipe rubs the raw chicken with salt and rinses it. That step is left out here, following the Food Safety Commission of Japan, which advises not washing raw chicken because it can spread contamination. The salt used for that rub is not moved into the broth, so it does not appear in the ingredients.

Is 15 minutes enough to cook a whole chicken?

The recipe gives about 15 minutes over low heat as its timing, but that is not treated as a safety check for a 1.2–1.3 kg bird. Use a food thermometer at the thickest part and continue cooking until the center has been at least 75°C for at least 1 minute, as Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare recommends.

Where do all six shallots go?

The recipe lists 6 shallots. Five are roasted with the onion and ginger, 3 are added to the chicken pot, and 1 is sliced raw and fried with the shrimp floss. The text does not say outright that the 3 in the chicken pot come from the roasted 5, and if they do, the remaining 2 roasted shallots are given no stated use. This article doesn't invent a destination for them or add extra shallots.

How big is a thìa?

Thìa simply means spoon. In the radish dressing, only the vinegar is clearly a teaspoon (thìa cà phê); the sugar, gia vị, fish sauce and MSG are given as thìa without saying which size. That is why those amounts are kept as written rather than converted.

What kind of mắm goes into the broth and the shrimp?

The recipe says only mắm, which can refer to fish sauce or to fermented shrimp products, and does not specify which. It is separate from the nước mắm in the radish dressing and from the mắm tôm added to each bowl. Season with a little and taste.

Is the shiitake dried or fresh?

The recipe lists 20 g shiitake and says to soak it, trim the stems and rinse, which suggests dried mushrooms, but it does not say whether 20 g is the dry or soaked weight. Use the shiitake that has simmered in the broth as the topping, not mushrooms that have only been soaked.

How long does the broth simmer in total?

The recipe says to simmer the bones for 1–2 hours and, after about 1 hour, to add the squid, shiitake, shrimp and onion and keep simmering. It does not say how long the second stage lasts, so a total time is not given here.

Sources