The real choice between pho bo and pho ga is the broth. Beef bones make a deep, fatty soup built for rare steak, brisket and a long menu of cuts. Chicken bones make a lighter, clearer one, which suits a gentler morning bowl or a table where nobody eats beef.
Chicken pho is the younger of the two. Andrea Nguyen’s history of pho at Viet World Kitchen (updated 2026) dates its first sales to 1939, usually on the Mondays and Fridays when beef could not be sold.
Don’t count on either bowl to keep your sodium down, though. Both run high, and the protein on top barely changes that.
What Is the Difference Between Pho Bo and Pho Ga?
Swap the beef bones and beef cuts for chicken bones and chicken meat, and most of the rest follows. Beef gives you the deeper, fattier bowl, while chicken ends up lighter and cleaner. Simmer time, spices, toppings and the way you order all trail behind that one change.
| Attribute | Pho bo | Pho ga |
|---|---|---|
| Broth base | Beef marrow and knuckle bones | Chicken backs, necks or a whole bird |
| Simmer time | 3 to 10 hours in published recipes | 2 to 3 hours in published recipes |
| Spices | Charred onion and ginger, star anise, cinnamon, clove | Coriander seed and clove, with charred onion and ginger; cinnamon and star anise only in some southern-style versions |
| Protein | Rare steak, brisket, flank, tendon, tripe | Breast, thigh, wing, offal |
| Flavor | Deep, savory, golden fat layer | Light, clean, delicate |
| First documented | Rare beef pho by 1930 | 1939 |
Both bowls use the flat rice noodles that define pho, called banh pho. The word pho names the noodle as much as the soup, as Andrea Nguyen of Viet World Kitchen points out.
Per Nguyen’s history of pho, chicken pho showed up in 1939, about nine years after vendors were already serving pho with rare beef slices.
Beef is still the favorite. Chicken ranks second in popularity, and a few shops specialize in it.
How the Broth Differs: Bones, Simmer Time and Spices
Beef broth starts with marrow and knuckle bones and simmers for 3 hours or longer. Chicken broth starts with backs, necks or a whole bird, finishes sooner, and gets a shorter spice list.
Bones and Simmer Time
Andrea Nguyen’s paired recipes at Viet World Kitchen use 5 to 6 pounds of marrow and knuckle bones for the beef broth. The chicken broth gets 3 pounds of backs, necks or other bony parts, plus a whole 4-pound chicken.
Published simmer times are all over the place, more than most guides admit.
- Viet World Kitchen’s beef broth takes 3 hours in total.
- SBS Food’s beef version needs 10 hours 20 minutes of cooking and then a further 7 to 8 hour reduction.
- Thuy Pham’s chicken broth in Delicious magazine cooks for 2 hours.
- Cooking Therapy’s chicken recipe runs about 3 hours, with 30 minutes on the chicken and 2.5 hours more after that.
The ranges overlap at 3 hours. A quick beef broth and a slow chicken broth take about the same time, and the gap only opens at the long end, where reduction-style beef recipes run past 10 hours.
Skipping the parboil is the common failure on both. Nguyen’s chicken recipe states that a clear broth requires parboiling and rinsing the chicken parts first.
Aromatics and Spices
Sources split on how far chicken pho should depart from the beef spice list.
Nguyen’s recipe uses coriander seeds and a few cloves, along with cilantro, to set the two apart. She also notes that some cooks flavor chicken broth with the same spices they use for beef.
SBS Food’s beef pho recipe calls for charred onion and ginger, star anise, cinnamon stick and cloves. For chicken, America’s Test Kitchen’s northern-style version sticks to coriander seeds and cloves, while its southern-style version adds cinnamon and star anise. That puts region ahead of protein as the deciding factor.
Fish sauce seasons both broths. Nguyen traces the southern sweet edge to a touch of rock sugar.
Beef Cuts and Chicken Parts: What Goes on Top
You order pho bo by beef cut and pho ga by chicken part. A beef menu runs from rare steak and brisket to flank, tendon and tripe, while a chicken menu sticks to breast, thigh, wing and offal.
Nguyen’s pho-ordering guide at Viet World Kitchen lists the standard beef options, which show up on menus under their Vietnamese names. Tai is thin rare steak that the hot broth cooks right in the bowl. Chin is well-done brisket, nam is flank and gau is fatty brisket. Gan is tendon, and sach is tripe.
Pho ga works from a shorter list. Breast is the lean pick. Thigh is the favorite at Michelin-listed Pho Ga Nguyet in Hanoi, and wings and offal such as heart and liver round things out.
Pho Ga Nguyet on Phu Doan Street serves chicken pho with a mix of cuts. Michelin Guide inspectors suggest pairing thigh with wings, or wings with breast.
Menu design reflects the split. Loving Pho counts about 15 items in the pho bo group of a typical menu, against 1 or 2 for pho ga.
Cooking method differs as well. Raw beef slices cook in the hot broth ladled over them, while chicken is poached in the stock pot and then shredded or sliced.
Flavor, Broth Clarity and the Garnish Plate
Pho bo tastes deep and savory, with a golden layer of beef fat on top. Pho ga is lighter and cleaner, and its broth runs clearer.
SBS Food’s pho bo recipe credits that fat layer for beef pho’s aroma. Chicken broth has no equivalent, so a good pho ga depends on skimming and a gentle simmer.
Beyond the beef and chicken split, the general flavor profile of pho comes from spice, fish sauce and fresh herbs layered over the broth.
A northern table is plain, with chile slices and a few herbs and no hoisin or sriracha, according to Nguyen and Vietnam Airlines’ Hanoi guide. Down south the plate piles up with bean sprouts, Thai basil, sawtooth herb (culantro), lime and chile, and hoisin and sriracha sit within reach.
Sip the broth plain first, as Local Vietnam and Seamless both advise. Then follow the usual way to eat pho, adding herbs, lime and sauces a little at a time.
Go easy on the hoisin with pho ga. A sweet sauce flattens a light chicken broth faster than a beef one.
Is Pho Ga Healthier Than Pho Bo?
Pho ga is the lighter bowl, but only by a small margin, and both carry a lot of sodium. Noodle volume, cut choice and how much broth you finish move the total more than the protein does.
The matched-portion comparison from Noom lists 430 calories for beef pho against 380 for chicken pho at two cups each.
Published bowl figures swing well past that gap, because how many calories a bowl of pho carries depends on bowl weight, noodle portion and the cut on top.
Fat is where chicken’s edge can shrink. Bac Ninh Newspaper and Television notes that chicken pho may come with fatty or lean meat, so a thigh bowl and a breast bowl are not the same dish nutritionally.
Sodium matters more than protein here, and pho’s sodium content is built into the recipe. Andrea Nguyen’s beef pho seasons the broth slightly too strong on purpose, because the noodles and toppings go into the bowl unsalted.
Here is where the numbers land.
- USDA FoodData Central entry 2707124 (“Soup, pho, with meat”) lists 77 kcal and 365 mg of sodium per 100 g.
- Roll’d’s nutrition panel shows 2,952 mg of sodium in a 738 g mixed beef and chicken bowl, which works out to 400 mg per 100 g.
- The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025-2030 put the daily limit at under 2,300 mg.
The USDA entry covers pho with meat in general, so it cannot settle the beef versus chicken question.
What it does show is density. Two independent measures land within 35 mg per 100 g of each other, so the sodium in your bowl comes down to its weight and how much broth you drink.
Choose pho ga for a lighter bowl. Do not choose it for less salt.
Where Pho Bo and Pho Ga Came From
Beef pho came first, in and around Hanoi in the early 1900s. Chicken pho began as a workaround for days when beef could not be sold.
French demand for steaks left cattle bones and scraps with Hanoi butchers, and street vendors who already sold noodle soup swapped water buffalo for beef, according to Andrea Nguyen’s history of pho. A cook from Van Cu village in Nam Dinh Province opened a storefront in Hanoi around 1925, and Nam Dinh-style shops built their reputation from there.
The pot-au-feu theory gets only partial credit. Nguyen sees the charring of ginger and onion as the plausible French link, not the soup itself.
The 1939 Chicken Pho Shift
Sources agree on the two days and disagree on the reason.
Nguyen and the Vietnamese history site Am Thuc Hien Dai point to a ban on beef sales on Mondays and Fridays, meant to control the slaughter of draft animals. Bac Ninh Newspaper and Television tells it differently, describing shops that closed on those days because beef was unavailable.
Purists initially decried chicken pho as un-pho-like, Nguyen writes. It prevailed anyway as a worthy preparation in its own right.
Northern and Southern Serving Habits
About one million northerners moved south after the 1954 partition, which brought Hanoi-style pho to Saigon, per Nguyen.
The two styles diverged from there. Nguyen told The Takeout that Hanoi bowls run smaller, Seamless says the northern noodles are slightly wider, and northern cooks favor savory broth over sweet.
Region shapes the bowl as much as protein does. A Hanoi-style pho ga and a Saigon-style pho ga are different soups, which is why region belongs in the order next to the meat.
Choosing Between Pho Bo and Pho Ga
Order pho bo for depth, rare steak and the widest choice of cuts. Order pho ga for a lighter, cleaner broth, or when beef is off the table.
On a first visit to a new shop, go with pho bo and rare steak, since beef makes up most pho menus. For a light breakfast, pho ga is the better call, and Local Vietnam suggests it when beef broth feels heavy in the morning. If you skip beef entirely, that settles it. And if you’re cutting sodium, neither bowl wins, so ask about the broth instead.
When Pho Bo Is the Better Order
Pho bo has the deepest broth, with that golden fat layer, and the widest cut choice, from rare steak to tendon. It’s also the classic bowl that every other bowl gets measured against.
The downsides are real. It’s heavier at breakfast, fatty cuts such as brisket and tendon add fat quickly, and it’s off the table if you avoid beef.
When Pho Ga Is the Better Order
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Lighter, cleaner broth | Fewer variations on the menu |
| Works for beef-free diners | Less body than beef broth |
| Breast keeps the bowl lean | Dark meat and offal add fat |
The case against pho ga is mostly taste. Nguyen calls chicken pho a worthy and tasty preparation in its own right, while the author of the Cooking Therapy recipe rates it far below beef.
When Pho Ga Is the Wrong Pick
Skip it when sodium is the reason you picked it, or when you want fat and body, which the Cooking Therapy author says a chicken broth lacks.
- The shop is a beef specialist. Treat its one chicken item as the second order, not the first.
- The chicken is ordinary. Letsmunch’s recipe notes that a good-quality bird gives a more flavorful broth, and Vicky Pham says free-range is traditionally preferred.
Pho ga leans harder on the bird than pho bo leans on any single cut, so a weak chicken shows up in every spoonful.
Pho Bo vs Pho Ga FAQ
Is chicken pho good when you have a cold?
Yes, it is a common comfort bowl. Andrea Nguyen counts colds among the reasons people eat pho, and the hot, clear broth of pho ga is the lighter way to do it.
For the fuller picture, see whether pho helps with a cold.
Is pho ga easier to make at home than pho bo?
Generally yes. Chicken needs fewer bones and a shorter simmer, and Nguyen publishes a 1-hour Instant Pot chicken pho.
The gap narrows with the right appliance, since her recipe list also includes a pressure cooker beef pho.
How do I ask for more or less noodle when ordering pho?
Add nhieu banh for extra noodles or it banh for fewer, after the protein. Loving Pho gives the example “pho ga nhieu banh,” which gets you chicken pho with extra noodles.
Is pho gluten-free?
The bowl usually is, but the table is not. Banh pho is made from rice, while Local Vietnam flags hoisin sauce as a gluten source.
Broth ingredients vary by shop, so ask if you need a strictly gluten-free meal.
Making Either Bowl Lighter or Richer
Leaving broth in the bowl lightens pho bo and pho ga more than switching protein does, because the seasoning sits in the liquid. Changing the meat is the smaller lever.
At the sodium density of USDA’s pho entry and Roll’d’s bowl, a serving weighing 575 to 630 g carries the full daily limit by itself.
Start by leaving broth behind. After that, pick lean cuts like breast or rare steak, and skim the fat while keeping a thin layer. Sodium goes first because both bowls share it, while protein changes the total least.
The trade-off is body. Sunset’s write-up of Nguyen’s pho methods advises leaving a little fat for flavor, so a fully skimmed bowl tastes thinner than the pho bo or pho ga you ordered.
