Thailand is world-famous for its bold, flavorful cuisine, and trying the local dishes is one of the highlights of any visit. Whether you’re wandering through street food stalls in Bangkok or sitting down in a countryside restaurant, Thai food offers something for everyone.
From spicy soups and vibrant salads to comforting stir-fries and noodle bowls, this list covers the Top 10 Thai foods you need to try while in Thailand. Some are iconic, others are hidden gems, but every dish is full of flavor and culture.
Let’s face it, Thai Food is one of the major reasons you’re in Thailand is to enjoy the cuisine. There’s absolutely plenty to enjoy, so here’s our Top 10 list of the best Thai Food Dishes to have while in Thailand:
10 Rad Na | Top 10 Thai Food
A sumptuous noodle dish with gravy and meat, sometimes the gravy is mixed with egg
We had to start the list off with a noodle dish!
This versatile Thai meal can be found in street stalls, mall food courts, and Michelin starred restaurants. Different versions of it have crispy noodles, thin noodles, and large noodles. Some have different offerings of proteins, such as pork, chicken, or seafood. But what makes rad na such a special dish is the gravy! The pork gravy can sometimes even be mixed with egg, so be sure to check your options!
9 Kao Man Gai | Top 10 Thai Food
A popular dish that originated from the island of Hainan
This staple dish is actually commonly found in Southeast Asia as it was brought over by immigrants from the island of Hainan. It involves poached chicken, and seasoned rice that has been given flavor through boiling chicken fat. It’s also served with cucumber, and typically a dipping sauce made with garlic, ginger, and chilies.
While the dish can be found throughout Southeast Asia, different nations have different versions for theirs. If you find the Thai version at a street food stall, then you can find that the chicken tends to be a bit on the dry side. Restaurant versions of this dish tend to be a much more palatable fare.
8 Larb | Top 10 Thai Food
A meat salad? Count us in!
The last two entries are a bit milder on the taste spectrum, but larb most certainly changes all of that! Larb is typically made of ground meat and mixed with various herbs, lime juice, fish sauce, and dried chili flakes. The vegetables mixed in are lettuce leaves, cabbage, cucumber, and long beans. You can imagine that the combination allows for a variety of different flavors to come together, resulting in a most satisfying and delicious Thai dish. As it’s typically found in the northeast of Thailand, and restaurants that serve food from that region, larb can be served with plain rice, or sticky rice.
7 Gai Pad Med Mamuang | Top 10 Thai Food
Stir fries are a Thai specialty, and this one really tops some of the different dishes out there
This cashew chicken stir fry is yet another dish originating from China that’s found its way into Southeast Asia. The local population has put their own spin on it though, and the result is the perfect blend of different flavors and textures that Thai food is famously known for.
Chicken is of course the main protein found in this dish. It’s cooked and seasoned in a sauce made from soy sauce, oyster sauce, and a bit of sugar. The rest is a blend of roasted cashew nuts, onions, and bell pepper. The result is a dish that is so versatile that it can appeal to anyone ordering it!
6 Khao Soi | Top 10 Thai Food
A famous dish coming to you from the north of Thailand
Khao soi, like many others, is a dish that can be found in many of the neighboring countries. In this case, both Laos, and Myanmar have their own versions of this delectable dish.
The Thai version involves is a soup made with a coconut milk curry, boiled egg noodles, mustard greens, shallots, lime, and ground chilies.
This dish is a definite must-try as it’s harder to find outside of Thailand.
5 Pad Thai | Top 10 Thai Food
The Thai dish with a strange authoritative origin
Pad Thai sounds like it would be the quintessential Thai national dish. Strangely enough, this dish likely came to be around the 1940’s during Thailand’s WWII era. Field Mashal Plaek Phibuksongram had ordered Thais to utilize dishes that contained more noodles due to a rice shortage and Pad Thai came to prominence then.
The dish is a stir-fry containing rice noodles, shrimp, peanuts, egg, sugar and bean sprouts, all fried in a wok. There are multiple variations of Pad Thai, one of the most famous and most desirable being the entire dish being cooked inside an omelette!
4 Tom Kha Gai | Top 10 Thai Food
An incredibly satisfying creamy hearty broth
Tom kha gai is one of the many delicious Thai broths that you can find in restaurants. It’s similar to tom yum but has a higher emphasis on coconut milk giving it a sweet taste to go with all of its many other flavors!
This must order broth is made with coconut milk, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, straw mushrooms, chicken, chilies, coriander, fish sauce and lime juice.
3 Som Tum | Top 10 Thai Food
A famous Lao dish that traversed into Thailand through the Isan population
Another shared dish, this time from its Laotian neighbors, som tum is one of the most popular dishes in Thailand. The Thai version involves shredded papaya, chilies, garlic, dried shrimp, roasted peanuts, cherry tomatoes, long beans, fish sauce, and lime juice.
Much of these ingredients are pounded in a mortar, which lends to its name (tam in Lao is to pound).
2 Tom Yum Goong | Top 10 Thai Food
Hot and sour with a twist, now here’s a dish that’s quintessentially Thai
This is the dish that’s one of the best known Thai dishes worldwide. The dish is so authentically Thai that it gained UNESCO cultural heritage status.
This soup can be prepared in many different ways, but typically you can find it containing shrimp, lemongrass, mushrooms, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, and chilies. Since the dish listed here is Tom Yum Goong, then the protein for this amazing soup is shrimp, but you can easily find other versions containing pork, chicken, or seafood. The broth can also have a coconut milk base for an extra creamy texture and sweet taste!
1 Pad Krapao with Egg | Top 10 Thai Food
A stir fry had to take the top spot
As far as stir fries go, pad krapao has to be the most satisfying!
This savory dish is typically made with ground pork, oyster, soy, and fish sauce, holy basil, chilies, sugar, and garlic, then stirred together. Put together on a plate with rice and add a fried egg on top and you have the perfect Thai meal. It’s cost-effective, it’s fast, it’s flavorful, and it’s truly the best dish one can have in Thailand!
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