Jab chai จับฉ่าย is a comforting dish Thai people commonly enjoy at home. A medley of vegetables and pork ribs (or chicken) are cooked together until the meat is tender and the broth is packed with flavour. It's a dish my grandma has been making for us ever since I was a kid, and I've grown to love it more and more over the years. It's healthy, easy, and delicious!

Want to save this recipe?

We can email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!

What is the Jab Chai?

Jab means 10, and chai means vegetables in Teochew Chinese, who are the immigrants who brought this dish to Thailand. But you do not need 10 vegetables to make it! It's named that way because it's meant to be a soup that uses up bits and bobs of vegetables you have lying around, so it always ends up being a party of different veggies.

The broth gets its flavour and body from pork ribs, but you can also make it with chicken using drumettes. It's then seasoned with umami oyster sauce and soy sauce. It's one of those dishes that look slightly different in every family, and even with every batch, depending on what's available.

In Thailand, this is not a dish you can find in restaurants, so you have to go to someone's home to enjoy it. It is simple home cooking at its best!

Ingredients and Notes

Here are all the ingredients you'll need and important notes about them. For amounts, see the the full recipe card below.

Protein Options

The Classic Option: Asian-style chopped pork ribs. If you're unfamiliar with Asian style ribs, imagine a rack of ribs that are sliced horizontally so each bone is 2 inches long, then each rib is separated into singles. This way, the pieces are easy to eat in a soup, and the bones have a lot of cut surfaces to release tons off flavour into the broth. You can buy these ribs already cut into singles at Asian butchers, or sometimes they come in a long piece so you have to cut them up (see pic above).
I prefer back ribs over spare ribs because the pieces are more regular and so they cook at the same rate, but spare ribs are also fine to use. If using spare ribs, look out for pieces that are mostly meat, and cut them down against the grain so the meat is no thicker than ½ inch so they all cook at the same rate.
Some people also do a mix of ribs and pork belly. Feel free to do that if you like a fatty stew, but don't do belly only as the ribs are what give the broth flavour and body.
Option 2: Chicken drumettes. If you don't eat pork, you can make a chicken version using drumettes which also have a lot of bones that will make for a rich broth. Do not use boneless chicken unless you have a very good chicken stock to start.

Vegetable Options

While you can use any kind of soup-friendly vegetables you have, here are some common veg I use in my version:

Dried shiitake mushrooms. I highly recommend not skipping these as they add a lot of umami to the broth.
Daikon, peeled and cut in 1-inch (2.5 cm ) chunks. I also recommend not skipping daikon as it adds a wonderful natural sweetness to the broth. We rarely make broth without daikon in Thailand!
Carrot. I add carrots to give the dish some colour. Otherwise it'll be quite brown and not particularly pretty!
Green cabbage. Do not sub red cabbage lest your soup turns into something really weird looking!
Chinese broccoli (gai lan). Gai lan can be a bit bitter, so if you're sensitive to that you can also sub kale or broccolini.
Garlic, chopped.
Other good options include: celery, any kind of Asian mushrooms, kohlrabi, napa cabbage, cauliflower, tofu (fried tofu or tofu puffs recommended), bok choy, yu choy, zucchini, sweet corn (cut into 1-inch sections). Keep in mind that vegetables will give off their own flavour to the broth.

Seasoning

Nothing out of the ordinary here. These are all staple seasonings in a Thai kitchen!

Ground white pepper. Black pepper is fine too.
Soy sauce
Oyster sauce
Golden Mountain Sauce or Maggi Seasoning (optional). You can sub more regular soy sauce if not available.
Black soy sauce or dark soy sauce (optional) to give it a darker colour and a richer flavour.

How to Make Jab Chai

Here's a bird's eye view of the process, it is super simple! The full instructions are in the recipe card below, and if this is your first time, I highly recommend watching the video tutorial to ensure success!

Saute the garlic and pepper in oil until small bits of garlic turns golden. (On lazy mode, you can simply add the garlic and pepper to the soup without sauteing.)
Add the ribs and the water.
Add the mushrooms, daikon, and any other long-cooking veggies that won't overcook.
Add all of the seasonings and simmer for 30-40 minutes until the pork is fork tender.

Remove the mushrooms with tongs, squeezing out excess liquid and set them aside on a cutting board to cool slightly.
Add the quick cooking veggies, in our case carrots, cabbage and gai lan. Simmer for 10 minutes until the carrots are cooked through.
Once the mushrooms are cool enough to handle, cut off stems and slice the caps into thin pieces. Add the mushrooms back into the osup.
Taste and adjust seasonings with more soy sauce and pepper if needed, and it's ready to serve!

Pro Tip: It tastes better the next day

Jab chai is one of those dishes commonly known to taste better the next day! As the veggies sit overnight they have more time to absorb and exchange flavour. So this is a great dish to make ahead of time for a few nights of easy dinner!

Advance Prep & Storage

While you can make the whole dish in advance, what we often do is stew the pork ribs with the mushrooms, daikon and seasoning in advance. This is the part that takes a long time, so you can get that out of the way, and then add short-cooking veggies when you're ready to serve.

Jab chai will keep up to one week in the fridge and will probably freeze fine though I have never personally frozen it.

Before you start, if this is your first time, be sure to watch the video tutorial to ensure success!