Jeow Bong

On August 10, 2025 by admin With 2 Comments - Cooking

What is it?

Jeow bong (or jaew bong) is a Lao chili paste used as a dip or seasoning. It is powerful and complex: full of strong aromatics and potent citrus and fruit flavours, all tied together with fermented fish sauce.

One summer at the restaurant we had a food runner who’s mom was from Laos. We became pretty good friends and her family ended up visiting for a meal a few times. I had fun preparing interesting veggie dishes (off menu) for her vegetarian dad and sister.

Afterwards, on more than one occasion, her mom sent me homemade Lao beef jerky and other little snacks. One time I even got a full dinner-set of larp, sticky rice, sides and, of course, jeow bong! This was my first experience with Lao food and I was hooked.

Sometime before our food runner left to go to university, she brought me my own bamboo sticky rice steamer and pot set with a couple of little rice baskets. This was such a thoughtful gift and I use them often. Thanks Tounie, Émilie and famille Desrosiers!

Jeow bong recipe:

First let me say that although I am a professional chef, I am no expert at Lao cooking. I have learned to make a few dishes because I like them so much but I am still learning. When I looked around the internet for recipes, I found many different recipes for jeow bong. I pulled from a few of them, combining ingredients that I can easily get in my neighbourhood. Many recipes include pig skin as an ingredient but I left it out of this recipe only because I didn’t have time to pick it up. This recipe turned out very well without it but next time I may try with pork included.

Ingredients

10 cloves garlic
4 medium shallots
around 25 grams fresh galangal (one thumb-size chunk)
20 grams dried chilis
60ml (1/4 cup) of water
olive oil for frying (1-2 tablespoons)
30ml (2 tablespoons) fish sauce
6 kaffir lime leaves
25 grams tamarind paste (a little less than 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon MSG or Aji-no-moto (same thing, different name)
1 tablespoon palm sugar (or use regular white sugar)

Process

jeow bong ingredients — Raw ingredients.

chopped shallots and garlic — Slice shallots and garlic into uniform smaller pieces…this will help them to brown and cook evenly and will make them easier to crush with a mortar and pestle.

chopped galangal and kaffir lime leaves — Slice galangal into smaller pieces, rough chop lime leaves (you don’t have to do this but it keeps them from bouncing out of the mortar).

grating palm sugar — Shave palm sugar…you can probably just cut off a tablespoon-sized chunk if you don’t have a rasp.

In a hot dry pan, toast the shallots and garlic. Keep them moving.

heating shallots and garlic in dry pan — When they start to get brown and soften up a little, they are done.

heating galangal and lime leaves in dry pan — Dry roast galangal and lime leaves. These don’t need to brown. Just heat them until they are very aromatic. Use your nose. It is ok if the leaves char just a little. Galangal looks like ginger and I guess it shares a little of the flavour but…it has a much sweeter fruity aroma. I think it smells kind of like pink bubblegum when you warm it up.

roasting chilis in dry pan — Roast chilis until they become dark and smokey. A few charred patches are ok.

all aromatics pictured with stone mortar and pestle for making jeow bong — Now these will get processed by hand with this stone mortar and pestle. I think most people probably use a food processor instead but I wanted to try it this traditional way. It was more work that I thought!

scissors cutting chilis to smaller size — Start with the chilies. I snip mine into smaller pieces with scissors first. This way they don’t bounce out of the mortar so easily when you are grinding them.

chilis after grinding in mortar — Grind and pound them into a rough powder.

galangal and lime leaf grinding in mortar — Add galangal and kaffir lime leaves.

Pound and grind these into a rough paste. This takes a considerable amount of time and muscle. I was surprised.

Repeat this process with the shallots and garlic…pound..grind..pound…grind.

adding garlic and shallots to mortar and grinding into paste — This looks good to me. This is much rougher than would come out of a food processor (or a jar) but, I like the rustic look and once you cook it out everything relaxes into a nice soft paste.

cooking paste from mortar in pan — Add all of the paste from the mortar and warm it through.

Add the fish sauce, palm sugar, MSG, tamarind and water.

cooking paste while reducing liquid — Cook over medium heat stirring often.

finished jeow bong in pan — Once it cooks down to a sticky paste, it is done. Remove from heat and cool it down.

cooling jeow bong — Finished product! This is definitely chunkier than you would get if you bought it in a jar. But, it is delicious and easy to eat. Addictive! Personally, I like this rustic homemade look out of the mortar and pestle. If you want something perfectly smooth, use a food processor instead.

Now what?

Store the paste in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

You can use your jeow bong as a dip for meats or veggies or mix it into stir fried dishes. Or, try swiping a little onto a ball of warm sticky rice and popping it into your mouth. This is my favourite way to eat it.

Go easy with this stuff. It is surprisingly powerful!

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below.

Thanks for reading : )

cooking

2 Comments

Reply
Tounie keopraseuth August 10, 2025

Thank you Martin. What a nice comment you made about us. It was such a pleasure to share our Lao food with you who appreciates the diversity in food and who loves to explore and has a passion and interest in different cuisines.

Thank you and I truly appreciate someone like you.
touniekk@gmail.com
- Reply
  admin August 11, 2025
  
  Tounie! I am so happy you got to see this. Thank you for introducing me to Lao food : ) I feel fortunate to have met your lovely family.

TigerSalad

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