Thai Red Curry Chicken

How hard is making a Thai Red Curry from scratch? Spoiler Alert: it’s simple! Learn how I make my paste and curry – the results are delicious. Light, creamy and jam-packed with Thai goodness and fragrance.

A red Thai curry is one of the most successful of the country's cuisine. Along with green curry, it's on every Thai menu around the world. But often, the dish we're served is far from authentic or even tasty.

My recipe shows you how to create your own Thai red curry paste from scratch and lets you make up your own mind as to which is tastiest, store bought or freshly made. For me there's no comparison to a freshly ground (or blended) curry paste over most store-bought curry pastes. For that reason, everyone should make their own from-scratch curry at least once in their life!

My guide to store bought red curry paste

With that said, there are some excellent Thai curry paste brands out there which will do a fantastic job, but be warned, go for an authentic Thai brand over a supermarket curry paste - they are gross and have no place in anyone's life, let alone kitchen. If you do want to shop for a good ready-made paste I recommend the Maesri or Mae Ploy brands.

What's Ahead?

Stuff You'll Need

To make your own Thai red curry, along with a homemade red curry paste you'll need a fair few ingredients. But authentic Thai curries contain a lot of ingredients to give them their balanced, complex flavour. Here's what you'll need to get the best results.

• Red curry paste - a blend of fresh lemongrass, dried red chillies, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, cilantro stalks, garlic, shallots, white pepper, shrimp paste, cumin, coriander and paprika.
• Chicken - this recipe I'll use sliced chicken breast - it's one of the only curries where breast is good over thighs. Red curry is quick to cook so breast won't dry out. You can also use pre-cooked breast too.
• Mixed vegetables - a mix of whatever I have, but usually broccoli, carrot, corn, cauliflower etc. I'll often add a few beansprouts or drained canned bamboo shoots too.
• Coconut milk - the rich silky texture comes from the sweet, creamy coconut milk.
• Fish sauce and palm sugar and a little salt round out the flavours.

Serving & Storage Suggestions

Red curry is best served with either lots of fluffy jasmine rice or some slippery rice or egg noodles. I'll mostly serve mine with rice to soak up all that deliciously spicy sauce.

• Freezer - Thai red curry chicken is perfect for the freezer. Store in single serves in airtight containers for 3+ months. Reheat from frozen in the microwave until piping hot.
• Fridge - the curry will be fine for up to a week if well covered. Reheat in a pan or microwave until piping hot.

Ready to get cooking?

Take out be gone, making your own Thai red curry from scratch is such a joy! The flavour is beyond compare - it tastes so fresh when it's prepared this way. Making at home also allows you to control the heat too. If I'm feeling particularly sadistic I'll up the ante and double the chilli content and prepare to sweat it out. How spicy will you go? Enjoy the recipe folks!

More delicious Thai recipes

If you liked this red curry chicken recipe, I'm sure you'll love some more of my favourite Thai recipes.

• Pad Prik King
• Thai Beef Salad (Yum Nua)
  
• Thai Panang Chicken Curry
  
• Satay Chicken Curry
  
• Thai Yellow Curry with Minced Pork
  
• Beef Massaman Curry
  
• Thai Satay and Thai Peanut Satay Sauce
  
• Thai Omelette (Kai Jeow)
  
• Thai Crying Tiger Beef with Nam Jim Jaew Sauce
  
• Thai-Style Grilled Chicken (Gai Yang)
• Thai Curry Noodle Soup with Salmon

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