If you love shrimp and you love soup with a sour note to it, then you would love the flavors of this delicious Filipino sour soup recipe. This shrimp sinigang with tamarind recipe is a great weeknight treat that takes only 20 minutes to cook. Oh, and let's not forget sinigang soup is also a one-pot meal, making clean-up a breeze!
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What Is Tamarind and How Does It Taste
Tamarind has seeds and is, therefore, considered a fruit. The tamarind fruit is native to Africa but also grows in many other tropical regions, the Philippines being one of them.
Tamarind fruit grows in trees that produce bean-like pods filled with seeds surrounded by a fibrous pulp. The pulp of the young fruit is green and sour. These pulps are then boiled in water which is then used to give the sour taste of the broth for sinigang soup.
Unfortunately, here in America, we do not have access to fresh tamarind fruits. Therefore, we use the next best thing, which is this tamarind paste. The paste mimics the flavors of the classic Filipino soup very closely.
Main Ingredients and Substitutions
- Protein: frozen or fresh shrimp with heads and shells intact or headless and peeled works just as well. Other proteins can also work, however, pork is the most popular choice. Other variations of sinigang can be fish, beef, or chicken too.
- Different Souring Agent: tamarind concentrate or tamarind pulp. Calamansi or lemon juice can work in a pinch.
- Variety of vegetables like Spinach (water spinach), bok choy, daikon radish, eggplant, long beans or string beans (green beans), okra, taro root, or "gabi." See notes below.
- Fish Sauce: can be found in the Asian aisle at your local grocery store or you can buy it online. I use a brand called Red Boat - it is 100 percent pure, first-press, "extra virgin" Vietnamese fish sauce. It's made from only two ingredients, the freshest black anchovy, and sea salt. It's naturally Gluten-Free. Be sure to read the label as some may contain wheat and MSG.
What is Taro Root and How Does It Taste Like
Taro root is a root vegetable that originated in Asia but is now enjoyed worldwide. Taro root is called gabi in the Philippines and has brown outer skin and white flesh with purple specks throughout. When cooked, it has a mildly sweet taste and a texture similar to a potato.
I used the taro root for both flavorings and to add consistency to the soup. It gave the soup a little more depth texture and a layer of sweetness like a sweet potato.
So, overall, both tamarind and taro root gave this particular recipe more of a complex and balanced flavor playing out the sourness and sweetness. You can find tamarind and taro roots in an Asian food market.
How to Cook Shrimp Sinigang
- In a stockpot, add water, tamarind paste, and tomato. Bring water to a boil.
- Turn to simmer: and add shrimp or prawns. Let simmer for 3 minutes. Be careful not to go over, since we will add vegetables, giving the shrimp more cooking time.
- Add the vegetables: Taro Root, Eggplant, String beans, Okra, and Spinach. Cover and continue to simmer for an additional 2 or 3 minutes. Turn off and remove from heat.
- Serve immediately with rice or nice crusty bread to sop up the Sinigang broth.
- Season with salt or fish sauce to taste.
Expert Tip
In handling Taro Root:
- Taro root contains oxalic acid, and when handling raw taro in large amounts, can cause your hands to itch. One way to avoid getting itchy hands when peeling and cutting raw vegetables is by wearing kitchen gloves.
How To Cook This Filipino Favorite
- In a stockpot, add water, tamarind paste, and tomato. Bring water to a boil.
- Turn to simmer: and add shrimp or prawns. Let simmer for 3 minutes. Be careful not to go over, since we will be adding vegetables, which will give the shrimp more cooking time.
- Add the vegetables: Taro Root, Eggplant, String beans, Okra, and Spinach. Cover and continue to simmer for an additional 2 or 3 minutes. Turn off and remove from heat.
- Serve immediately with rice or nice crusty bread to sop up the Sinigang broth.
- Season with salt or fish sauce to taste.
- Serve with a side of steaming hot rice.
Frequently Asked Questions
YES! Add green chili peppers to the broth to make the dish spicy.
Yes! Sinigang dish is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and protein from all the ingredients combined.
Deveining shrimp is when you remove the black strip that goes along the back of the shrimp. This is the shrimp's lower digestive tract. You'll find some sand and grit and the shrimp's digested food. Deveining the shrimp prior to cooking makes for a cleaner presentation of the shrimp. And you won't get that gritty texture when you bite into the shrimp.
Yes! Check out my recipe for Pork Sinigang using the stovetop and Instant Pot.
Large shrimp would be ideal to make Shrimp Sinigang. I prefer to use 16-20 count size shrimps. That means you get about 16 to 20 shrimp per pound.
Other Sinigang and Soup recipes
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📖 Recipe Card
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- 1 ½ pound Shrimps or Prawns fresh or frozen
- 1 quart Water
- 1 Tomato sliced
- 1 Tablespoon Tamicon Tamarind Paste
- 1 2 Taro Root sliced
- 1 Eggplant sliced diagonally
- 1 cup String Beans
- 1 cup Okra
- 1 cup Spinach
- Juice of 1 Lemon
- Salt to taste
- Chili Pepper optional
- Fish Sauce optional
Instructions
- In a stockpot, add water, tamarind paste, and tomato. Bring water to a boil.
- Add shrimp or prawns and juice of one lemon. Let simmer for 3 minutes. Be careful not to go over, since we still need to cook the vegetables, which will give the shrimp more cooking time.
- Add Taro Root, Eggplant, String beans, Okra, and Spinach to the stockpot. Cover and continue to simmer for an additional 2 or 3 minutes. Turn off and remove from heat. Add salt or fish sauce to taste.
- Serve with rice or nice crusty bread to sop up the Sinigang broth.
Notes
- You can substitute prawns for the shrimp in this recipe. Depending on the size, the cooking times will vary and will be slightly more.
- You can also use fresh or frozen (peeled and headless) shrimp.
- If you can't find Taro Root, you can substitute parsnips, turnips, or rutabaga.
- You can substitute green beans for string beans.
Nutrition
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Mae
For a soup that is so quick and easy to make, this sure was very tasty! I love the addition of gabi in the recipe. It gave the soup more body.