Lemongrass Uses: Soups, Curry Pastes, Satay, Laksa, Seafood and Drinks

Lemongrass tastes of rich lemon without the acidity, and it’s a grass, not a citrus plant. Its stalks are woody and tough, so in every dish below it’s either bruised and fished out of a broth, as in tom yum, or pounded and minced into a paste or marinade until it disappears. Those two jobs cover everything from Cambodian kroeung to Malaysian satay, where the green tops get tied into a basting brush. For the knife work (trimming, bruising, mincing, how long to simmer), see cooking with lemongrass.

Lemongrass uses at a glance

The amounts are each recipe’s own (Attributed). Together they show lemongrass’s two jobs: infusing a broth, or becoming part of a paste or marinade that you eat.

Soups and broths

Broth is where lemongrass most often goes in whole. In Nancie McDermott’s tom yum goong for Saveur, the stalks are smashed, knotted and simmered in stock with makrut lime leaves for about 5 minutes, then tossed before the shrimp go in.¹ Saveur’s Huế-style spicy beef noodle soup, bún bò Huế, uses lemongrass twice. Bruised lengths simmer in the beef broth with fish sauce and rock sugar for an hour, and a minced stalk gets cooked into the chile oil that seasons the bowl.² That’s the general method: a tied bundle simmered in stock to give up its essence.

Laksa (Attributed). Mandy Yin’s curry laksa, from her book Sambal Shiok, simmers two bruised stalks in a broth made with 800 ml of coconut milk for 20 minutes, then pulls them out with the other herbs before seasoning.³ You’ll often read that laksa can have a tamarind base as well as a coconut one. We didn’t research tamarind laksa, so we’re only citing the coconut version.

Curry pastes

Cooks in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam pound lemongrass with garlic, makrut lime leaf and other herbs into thick curry pastes, and it’s a popular ingredient in many curries. Saveur’s Cambodian yellow kroeung uses only the inner cores of six stalks, pounded with makrut lime leaves, garlic, shallots, galangal, turmeric and prahok.⁶ When lemongrass goes into a curry this way, it’s ground fine and stays in the dish. See Thai spices, galangal and makrut lime leaves.

Marinades: chicken and meat

Lemongrass is a key ingredient in Asian cooking, especially in stir-fries and meats. Two named recipes show how:

• Vietnamese caramelized chicken. In Huong Thu Nguyen’s ga xao sa ot cay, some of the minced lemongrass goes into the marinade and the rest is stir-fried with onion and garlic.⁴
• Malaysian satay. Adam Liaw and Poh Ling Yeow blend sliced lemongrass with shallots, turmeric, garlic and other seasonings into a marinade paste for 1 kg of chicken thighs, put more lemongrass in the peanut sauce, and tie the reserved green tops into a brush for basting the skewers on the grill.⁵

You’ll see a tip that the stalks can double as satay skewers. We couldn’t find a recipe that does it. The satay recipe we read uses the tops as a basting brush instead.⁵ You can also rub a roasting chicken with lemongrass paste or tuck bruised stalks in the cavity.

Seafood

In Java the leaf sheaths go into spicy sambals and into cooked fish and fish sauces. McDermott’s tom yum pairs lemongrass with shrimp.¹ Bruised stalks stuffed into a whole fish before steaming or grilling, or minced lemongrass in a shrimp or mussel stir-fry, are other good uses. Lemongrass won’t add sourness the way lime does, since it has none of the fruit’s acidity, so a squeeze of lime still has a place.

Salads and raw uses

Raw lemongrass is only pleasant when it’s very fine. Cooks peel back the outer layers to reach the tender shoots at the center, which can be chopped finely and added straight to a dish. In Java, the heart of young shoots is eaten as a side with rice. For a salad, slice the pale core paper thin or pound it into the dressing.

Tea and drinks

Lemongrass stems are widely used in teas and other drinks, and in Java it flavors a popular sherbet. For tea, bruise and slice a stalk and steep it in just-boiled water. Ginger is a natural partner. In cocktails, muddle a bruised stalk or use it as a stirrer. Penn State rates lemon verbena as having the brightest, most intense lemon scent of the lemon herbs,⁷ so for drinks, see lemon verbena vs. lemongrass.

Using dried or frozen lemongrass in these dishes

America’s Test Kitchen, using half as much dried lemongrass as fresh, found it fine in a curry paste and a soup but not in a stir-fry, where it kept a hay-like texture.⁸ The cooking with lemongrass page has the details and ATK’s storage figures. Going by that test, the broths and pastes above are the safer places for dried lemongrass, and the marinades and raw uses aren’t.

Not yet sourced

• A tamarind-based laksa that uses lemongrass.
• A recipe that uses lemongrass stalks as satay skewers.
• A named lemongrass cocktail or tea recipe with amounts.

Related

• Lemongrass profile and cooking with lemongrass
• Lemongrass substitutes
• Lemon verbena vs. lemongrass and lemon balm vs. lemongrass
• Thai spices, galangal and ginger