Mì Quảng (Vietnamese Quang-style Noodle)

Mì Quảng is a signature rice noodle dish of Quang Nam province in the Central region of Vietnam. It features slippery noodles, colorful toppings, and flavorful broth. If you are ready for something new beyond phở, definitely give it a try.

What is Mì Quảng?

Mi Quang is among the must-try dishes when one travels to the Danang - Hoi An area, besides Hoi An chicken rice. The area was once a busy port with merchants from all over Asia, such as Japan and China. Therefore, its regional cuisine is quite distinguishable from the rest of Vietnam, blending Viet flavors with those from Southeast and East Asia regions.

Although “mì” in Vietnamese often implies wheat flour noodles, Vietnamese Quang-style noodle actually uses rice noodles. The noodles can be either yellow or white. Placed on top will be a myriad of toppings, such as chicken, shrimp, pork, quail eggs and lettuce, microgreens, rice crackers, and roasted peanuts. A bowl of mi Quang is full of colors and textures.

One of the things that set this dish apart from other Vietnamese noodle dishes is the broth. It is often seasoned quite heavily, and barely enough broth to coat the noodles is added to the bowl. As a result, the broth never covers the noodles, but you can still use a spoon to eat it. So it’s not a noodle soup like pho, and not a dry noodle dish like Vietnamese beef noodle salad (bun bo xao) either.

The mi Quang recipe I’m sharing today (which was handed to me from my chef friend) is a classic version with chicken, called “mì Quảng gà“. I will also add some notes in case you want to make it with shrimp or pork.

Main Ingredients

Below are the main ingredients for mi Quang. Later in the post, there will be other sections about other toppings and accompaniments.

Chicken: you can choose to use a whole chicken, cut-up chicken parts with bones, or use a combination of boneless chicken for the toppings and chicken bones to make the broth.

When I use a whole chicken, I usually cut up the thighs and drumsticks into several pieces, debone the breasts then slice into strips, and use all the remaining bones for cooking the broth.

Shallots and Vietnamese pearl onions: a special ingredient in mi Quang is củ nén (Vietnamese pearl onions) which is a bit more pungent than shallots. When I cannot find it, I just use a lot more shallots to compensate.

Spices and seasonings: you will need turmeric powder, fish sauce, salt and pepper. To give the dish a beautiful color, Viet cooks also use some red annatto oil which is made from annatto seeds and vegetable oil. You may have seen how to make this oil in my bo kho (Vietnamese lemongrass beef stew) recipe. I personally think it is optional.

Rice noodles: the specific noodles for mi Quang may not be widely sold. An easy option is to use pho rice noodles instead. If you like the noodles to be yellow, simply add just a bit of turmeric powder to the water you will boil the noodles in.

Accompaniments

I recommend having the following accompaniments for Vietnamese Quang noodles. Feel free to omit what you can’t find, but the bold ones are strongly recommended:

• lettuce, microgreens, beansprouts, banana blossoms
• cilantro, scallion, Thai basil, mint
• roasted peanuts
• rice crackers (bánh đa mè)

I often buy these kinds of dry rice crackers (as in the image below), and then pop them in the microwave for probably a couple of minutes to puff them up. They can be found at Asian grocery stores.

How to Make Mi Quang at Home

You may feel the list of ingredients and instructions look so long, but the dish is actually pretty straightforward to cook. One thing you may not like is the dish will require the use of several pots and pans. The two main cooking steps are making the broth and cooking the meat.

1️⃣ Cook the Broth

The base of the broth is just a simple chicken stock. First, parboil the chicken bones and then simmer the bones with ginger and charred shallots for over an hour. Near the end, we will season it with fish sauce and juice from cooking the chicken meat.

2️⃣ Cook the Meat

As mentioned above, I use boneless chicken breast strips and chopped thighs and drumsticks with bones for the toppings in this Vietnamese Quang-style chicken noodle. I cook them separately since they require different cooking time, but first, let’s marinate them with some turmeric powder and fish sauce.

Either finely mince or pound the Vietnamese pearl onions (or shallots), then sauté half of it until fragrant. Add the chicken breast strips and cook until no longer pink. Then add a bit of water and cook for another 10 minutes to firm up the meat and let it absorb the seasonings.

Sauté the remaining pounded pearl onions and add the chopped thighs and drumsticks. Cook until no longer pink, and then add water and simmer for about half an hour. It’s almost like braising the meat.

And that’s all the main cooking steps. Of course, you may need to cook the noodles too if you use dried noodles, but that should be easy.

Other Toppings

Nowadays, Vietnamese Quang-style noodles may have a variety of cooked toppings besides chicken, such as:

• boiled eggs: usually quail eggs or chicken eggs
• different proteins: such as shrimp, pork ribs (or pork slices), fish, frog legs. If you decide to use a different protein, simply follow the same cooking method we use for chicken. Marinate, then sauté with pearl onions/shallots and braise until the protein is well-seasoned.

Here’s a bowl of mi Quang with shrimp and chicken I made a while ago.

How to Serve Mi Quang

It’s easy to assemble a bowl of mi Quang.

• Add some cooked noodles to the bowl.
• Add the toppings, herbs and vegetables of your choice.
• Sprinkle scallions and roasted peanuts.
• Add the broth and make sure that the broth stays below the noodles. Having said that, if you prefer a more soupy mi Quang, feel free to go for it.

Serve the dish with some rice crackers, and add some lime juice or several slices of red chili if desired. Mi Quang shops often serve a small bowl of fish sauce with garlic and chili on the side as well.

Mi Quang is among one of my most favorite Vietnamese noodle dishes, and I hope it will become more well-known in the future. If you are ready for something new beyond beef pho and chicken pho, definitely give it a try. I look forward to hearing your feedback about this dish.

Other Vietnamese Noodles Recipes

⭐️ I’d love to hear what you think about the dish, so please feel free to leave a comment and a rating if you have tried it. New recipes are added every week so let’s connect on Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram for the latest updates. You can find my collection of Vietnamese recipes here.