Thai Green Curry Paste Recipe (2024)

There’s nothing much traditional about this recipe – it’s an entirely vegan (no shrimp paste/fish sauce!) green curry paste whipped up in no time using a food processor. Once you’ve made it a few times to get the spice to your liking, you can double or triple the recipe, then spoon it into ice cube cavities to freeze for later use. Did I mention this was super speedy?!

Homemade green curry paste for the win today! A warning for the purists – turn away now, because this is certainly not an authentic recipe. It is however an incredibly fragrant, zingy, gingery, spicy and all-round delicious one that you’ll be able to whip up in 10-15 minutes flat.

Before we kick things off, this is a recipe you’ll need to make at least once or twice – adjusting it to your liking along the way. For this reason, it’s a small-ish sized batch, but you can scale that bad boy up once you’ve got it just-so.

The great thing about making this up on a larger scale, is that you can freeze it in smaller portions then thaw and enjoy for a ridiculously quick mid-week meal.

You’ll love this because it’s:

• Super speedy
• No need for mortar, pestle and elbow grease
• Made without shrimp paste/fish sauce
• Packed with flavour

[bctt tweet="Super speedy Thai Green Curry Paste made without shrimp paste/fish sauce. Find it here!" username="laurenglucina"]

Sourcing Green Curry Paste Ingredients

There are a few more exotic ingredients here that need to be sourced, however some can be substituted.

Perhaps the most tricky to find are the whole kaffir limes and galangal. You’ll likely need to head to a Farmer’s Market for this – I picked up a few fresh kaffir limes from the Sunday Avondale Markets, but couldn’t for the life of me find a galangal.

The kaffir lime leaves are a bit easier to come by, like lemongrass, I’ve often seen them packaged up in the fresh herb section of stores like Farro.

Hot tip: If you come by any of these ingredients then I suggest stocking up, wrapping them well and freezing. That way you can thaw them out again when you’re ready to use them.

Thai green chilies can also be tricky to source – again, local markets or Asian supermarkets are your best bet.

Curry Paste Ingredient Substitutes

Usually curry paste is made with shrimp paste and or fish sauce. I’ve used coconut aminos instead – I think this is as close as you’ll get for an entirely vegan version. Coconut aminos is made from the sap of coconut flowers. It is a seasoning used as an alternative to soy. Typically it contains a few other ingredients – hot pepper, garlic, onion and salt for example.

The other adjustment I’ve made, it to go for whole dates over sugar. A little sweetness can help balance the heat out.

Now, depending on what you can source, here are some alternatives:

• Kaffir lime peel: use regular lime peel
• Kaffir lime leaf: use an extra lime peel
• Galangal:use regular ginger
• Shallots: use onions
• Lemongrass: sorry! Can’t help you there!

Thai Green Curry Paste Step-by-Step

Start by dry toasting your aromatic spices in a pan until fragrant, but keep an eye on them so they don’t burn. Next, because we’re cheating and making this in a food processor, I highly recommend you give them a quick whiz in a spice grinder – otherwise you’ll likely end up with whole spices in your finished paste. If you do this – add the kaffir lime leaf in there too, as it’s a relatively tough one to break down.

Now we need to get all our fresh ingredients prepped – you don’t need to be too fussy about slicing and dicing the softer ingredients like your shallots/garlic/chilies, but do take the time to finely slice the tougher guys like your lemongrass, kaffir lime peel and ginger.

Add everything to a food processor and blend till well combined. Give it a bit of a scrape-down as you go. Inhale the lovely fresh aromas. Done!

From here, I recommend testing out a curry recipe next, and see how you find the heat. This is a relatively small batch, so you may want to add or use less chilli next time. Once you find your own sweet spot (hot spot?), triple the batch, then spoon the mixture into the cavities of an ice cube tray to freeze for later use.

I found that each cavity takes a rounded tablespoon of paste. You may find one tablespoon of paste per serve is spot on, but I’ve been using just over that.

MORE DELICIOUS Kitchen Staples

Some more handy recipes to keep you well stocked:

• Creamy Vegan Aioli made with Cashews
• Raw Vegan Parmesan
• Homemade Roasted Tomato Sauce
• How to Make Gomashio

That’s it my friends! Enjoy and see you next week with a fragrant curry, of course.

Lauren.

If you make and enjoy this recipe, please leave a rating below. And better yet – leave me a comment to tell me how you got on, or just say hi – I LOVE hearing from you. Follow me onInstagram,FacebookorPinterest to see more of my everyday recipes and wellness tips.

📖Recipe

Related