Everyday Healing Broth: A restorative soup made for cold season

Inspired by the salty, sweet and sour flavours of a Thai soup, this nourishing broth is packed with turmeric, chilli and lime, perfect for perking you up in the winter months.

Thailand's famous tom yum soup has a mysterious history that no one can quite agree on. Known to have existed since at least the 14th Century, some say it was created by the royal chefs of the Ayutthaya kingdom to showcase the region's extraordinary local cuisine, while others say it was devised by a Thai boatman who added lemongrass, lime leaves and shrimp paste to a hot-boiled pot of soup on his way to do business in China. Others still call it a dish made by rural farmers awash with herbs and spices. No matter how it originated, it has become a staple in Thai cuisine, and it takes on a new form in this recipe for a healing broth, created by South African plant-based food writer Samantha Dormehl. 

"There's something so incredible about a tom yum soup for me," she says. "It's in the balance of all those gorgeous Thai flavours; the salty, sour, sweet, astringent combination. It brings back a food memory of sitting at a restaurant on a beach in Thailand with my feet in the sand, eating an insane veggie tom yum soup with big chunks of mushroom. It had coconut milk in it with spicy tom yum paste and then roasted peanuts on top. And it was just unbelievable." 

Dormehl was inspired to create a plant-based broth incorporating nutritious ingredients that is perfect for winter – and she calls it "Everyday Healing Broth". 

"It's got a beautiful combination of ginger, turmeric and chilli, which are all incredibly healing in their own way," she says. "Ginger is warming and nourishing; turmeric's got anti-inflammatory properties; and chilli is super high in vitamin C. Together they give you that feeling of clearing the airways, opening your chest and your sinuses. You have this really zinging feeling when you eat a broth like this: it's so good it almost makes you feel high!"

Dormehl works as a recipe creator and menu consultant from her home, a smallholding on the Garden Route in South Africa where she grows her own produce and works with plant medicine. Her book The Wanderlust Kitchen, released on 11 February 2025, focuses on restorative, plant-based recipes from around the world, and, with beautiful photography, draws on her skills as a photojournalist as well as her experiences collecting recipes from her travels in Thailand, India, Belgium, Nicaragua, Hong Kong and California.

"My plant-based food journey started in India," she says. "The vegetarian food in India was absolutely mind-blowing. And I just felt so incredible eating that way: I felt lighter and I was doing a lot of yoga and I felt very connected to my body. After that, it just naturally continued."

Her recipes take readers around the world, and include Salsa Macha, a thick salsa that originates in Veracruz along the Gulf of Mexico coast; a Jackfruit Tostada dish inspired by time spent in Sri Lanka; and Kitchari, an ayurvedic dal dish straight from India. Beside rainbow-hued images of her dishes, the book is full of inspirational travel photography, from the red hills of Hampi, India, to the foaming surf of a Nicaraguan beach, and suggestions of mantras and meditations to aid focus. All the recipes are vegan, but it's not a recipe book only for those who don't eat meat, as she explains.

"Plant-based menus have just got so much more creative in the last 10 years," she says. "I think that even if people aren't eating a strictly vegetarian or vegan diet, they are looking to incorporate more plants into their diet and not feeling they have to eat meat with every meal. There's a lot more awareness around the role of food in health, and the need to incorporate whole foods and lots of colour."

Dormehl found the benefits of health-giving food when her partner tragically ed away after being struck by lightning. Following this experience, and an episode of kidney stones, she started to look at how food could help on her healing journey, mentally and physically. She views food as medicine, and every meal as a chance to nourish and heal her body, or the opposite.

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