Thai green curry is one of the most popular Thai dishes around the world. Making the curry with a store-bought paste is easier than making it yourself, but if you can source the ingredients and have some time on your hands, making Thai green curry paste from scratch is rewarding, tastes better, and you have control over what goes into it.
Why You Should Make Your Own Green Curry Paste
So why make your own paste if it can be difficult to find the ingredients and takes a decent amount of work? For one thing, it’s a rewarding experience that brings you closer to another culture. It’s a lot easier to buy premade roux, fondant, BBQ sauce, etc. as well, but it usually tastes a lot better when you make them yourself. Some store-bought pastes are somewhat decent, but they’re all a bit duller in color and flavor than freshly made paste from scratch.
When you make Thai green curry paste from scratch, you can taste the sharp differences in each of the ingredients, where the canned and jarred stuff gets muddled together. The fruity and spicy notes of the chilis, the herbal and earthy notes of the spices and galangal and coriander, and the floral taste of lemongrass. You can also tailor the amounts of each ingredient that you use to match your own palate.
Ingredients for Thai Green Curry Paste
This recipe is as authentic as I can make it but does require a trip to an Asian or international market. Depending on where in the world you live, or even where you live in the US, will determine how easy or difficult some of the items will be to find. Personally, there’s a large number of grocery stores in my town, and even going to the three more expensive ones that have a fairly decent international section, I wasn’t able to find a number of the items on this list. The closest international market to me was a 35-minute drive away, but it was a great experience just walking through the entire store and seeing so many cultures represented through food.
Normally I try and list ingredients in order of importance or in the order they’re used, but here I’m going to list things from the most difficult to find to the easiest. I’ll try and give alternatives as well, but a lot of these things aren’t swappable.
Coriander Roots – This provides an earthiness to the curry paste and will probably be the single hardest item to find, especially in the US and parts of Europe. Many cultures use the leaves in cooking and coriander/cilantro is easily available in most parts of the world. The problem is that it is usually snipped off at the stem, right before the root, before being sold in stores. You may have some luck finding it in Asian markets, but a common work-around is to just use some cilantro stems instead. Another option would be to buy a cilantro plant for an herb garden and harvest it yourself, but you’ll literally be uprooting the entire plant to use its root and need to use the leaves for another recipe shortly after or freeze them.
Kaffir/Makrut Lime Zest & Leaves – The lime leaves can be a hassle to find, but the fruit itself is just as hard, if not harder to find than coriander root. The fruit itself isn’t particularly tasty, but you use the zest for several Thai recipes. If you can’t locate any at an international market, you can try online, but there’s not many growers in the US and they don’t tend to sell you a single lime at a time. Persian limes are not the same however, and you can’t substitute their zest. If you can’t locate the fruit, just omit it.
The lime leaves are slightly easier to find. Fresh leaves are hardest, but some international markets will have them in the produce area. If you can’t find fresh, some stores will sell them frozen, and they keep well stored like that. The last option is dried lime leaves, which can easily be found online.
Galangal – Galangal is a type of rhizome in the Zingiberaceae, or ginger family. While that means it’s a cousin to ginger and turmeric, galangal is not replaceable with ginger. They do look somewhat similar, but their flavors are distinctly different. Where ginger is somewhat spicy and earthy with a slight sweetness to it, galangal is peppery, piney, and citrusy. Like the lime leaves, you should be able to find this in Asian or international markets either fresh in the produce area, or frozen. It can also be found dried or powdered, but definitely look for fresh or frozen first.
Green Chilis – Traditionally, Thai cooks will use a blend of 2-3 different chili peppers in their curry paste. When shopping for the right peppers to use however, there can be some confusion in labeling. Three of the most commonly used chilis tend to be prik chee fah (spur chili), prik jinda (sometimes labeled as Thai peppers), and prik kee noo suan (“mouse dropping” chili, or birds eye chilis). Finding these fresh or frozen in Asian or international markets will be hit or miss depending on what your stores carry. I bought Thai peppers that are the prik jinda type and replaced the spur chili with serrano peppers.
When searching for chili peppers, look for the Thai chilis first, and then replace them with similar flavor, color, and heat level. Spur chilis are somewhat mild, prik jinda are spicy around the 70-80,000 Scoville scale, and birds eye chilis are even hotter, in the 100,000 Scoville range.
Shrimp Paste – While possible to find in your local grocery store, fermented shrimp paste is used in a lot of Asian cooking, so any international market will have jars of this readily available. This ingredient is basically the turning point in the recipe where you might find it at any store, but you will 100% have no issue finding it in Asian or international markets.
Lemongrass – This ingredient is becoming increasingly more common to find in normal chain grocery stores. While the whole stalks pictured above are not commonly sold in grocery stores, they have started selling either fresh, trimmed lemongrass, or trimmed stalks sold 1-2 pieces in a container with the other fresh herbs like thyme and rosemary.
Shallots – These are also becoming more and more common to find in every grocery store. While very similar to onions in flavor, they are also more delicate and sweeter in their flavor without the sharpness an onion brings.
Spices – The most common trio used in green curry is a blend of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, and white peppercorns. While the powdered forms are the easiest to find, look for the whole seeds and peppercorns instead. All three of these are readily available in most grocery stores these days, even Walmart sells them.
Garlic – Fresh bulbs available everywhere.
Salt – Just a bit to season the curry paste. I prefer to use Kosher salt here, because it’s not just for flavoring, but also acts as an abrasive when grinding up ingredients in a mortar and pestle.
How to Prepare the Ingredients Before Grinding
Normally I won’t go into a lot of individual detail for each ingredient in a recipe, but since a number of these ingredients may be new to people, I wanted to give special mention to a few of them. Also note that I left some of the ingredients larger than I normally would so that they were still recognizable in the photography. Before using in a mortar and pestle or food processor, be sure to cut or chop most of the ingredients much smaller than pictured here.
Cumin & Coriander
Using a dry skillet, toast the seeds on a medium to medium-low heat for just a few minutes until fragrant. Set aside and allow to cool while you work on the rest of the ingredients.
Coriander Root
If you manage to get the roots, you just need to trim and clean them before using. Slice the root about an inch above, getting some of the stems which is fine, and use a knife to scrape the roots. This should clean off most of any remaining dirt. Then let them soak in a bowl of water, agitating once in awhile to finish cleaning them.
If you were only able to get the coriander/cilantro plant, simply cut the stems a little below the leaves and trim them down into smaller pieces.
Galangal
If you’ve used fresh ginger, this should be a familiar process. Using a spoon, scrape off most of the outer layer from the piece you are using. Normally I would grate or finely chop ginger for most applications, but for the galangal here, slice the root into thin discs instead.
Lemongrass
If you bought lemongrass that’s already prepared, simply chop it into small pieces. If you’re using whole stalks like pictured here however, you’ll need to do just a little prep work first.
The outer stalk of lemongrass is quite dry and inedible, so trim off the top part and cut about an inch or two above the bottom root bulb section. The edible part of lemongrass is the yellow, fleshy part above the root end and roughly a 5–6-inch section above that cut. When the inside begins turning greener and woodier, don’t use that section. You should also peel away the outer 1-2 leaves that feel drier, and they should come off easily. The edible part is still hard and fibrous, so cut that into small pieces before grinding.
While the outer, woody part of the stalks aren’t edible, you can reserve them and freeze them for use as flavors while making some soups and stocks.
Lime Leaves
Because these tend to be harder to grind down, you’ll want to prep them a little as well. Break the double leaves into singles, then fold in half lengthwise and either pull or cut the center stem off from the leaves. Gather a few leaves and roll them up, then finely slice them so you have small strands.
Chilis
Traditionally, most cooks will use the whole chilis, seeds and all. If you want to cut back on some of the spice level, slice open some of the chilis, no more than half, and use a knife to scrape out the seeds and the ribs. Because the skins can be a little tough to grind down, slice the chili peppers into small rounds before grinding.
Shallots
Shallots aren’t as hard and fibrous as most of the other ingredients, so you mostly just need to remove the outer skin like you would from an onion, and thinly slice them. You don’t need to do a fine dice before processing though.
Garlic
Because of how soft the garlic is compared to everything else; you only need to remove the skins. You can leave the cloves whole, or simply smash them, or just roughly chop them some to get a head start.
How to Make Thai Green Curry Paste
A few notes before going into the process. You’ll want a large mortar and pestle to make curry paste. The one pictured above with the ingredients is only there as a reference and is better suited to crushing spices or medicine. The one I actually use is about 8 inches wide and holds 5 cups. This recipe makes a little over half a cup of curry paste which is good enough for 1-2 servings of a 4-serving helping of green curry. This makes it more difficult to use a food processor or blender because of the small amount being made.
Another thing to note is that a food processor or blender doesn’t extract the same amount of natural oils and flavors that a traditional mortar and pestle technique does. However, if you want to make a large batch to freeze and have on hand whenever you’d like, scale up the recipe and use a food processor instead. Keep in mind that some of these ingredients can be quite fibrous though and can mess up the blades on blenders and food processors, so you’ll want to cut them very finely first. Processors can also start running hot and ruin the fresh ingredients, so go slowly and in stages just like with using the mortar and pestle. If the blades start to feel warm, take a break for a few minutes.
Before beginning the grinding and pounding process with a mortar and pestle, be sure to have all your ingredients prepped and set out. The basic rule of thumb is to start with your hardest ingredients and work in order to the softest ingredients, with one exception I’ll mention in a moment.
Start with your toasted cumin and coriander seeds and the white peppercorns. Grind into a fine powder and remove. The reason for removing them is that the powder acts as a nice absorber when you feel the ingredients are getting too wet.
Now place your chilis in the mortar and begin grinding them slowly. The reason I start with the chilis is that they can release a lot of moisture as you work, and as you start lifting the pestle higher and pounding the ingredients, you don’t want chili juices spraying back into your face and burning your eyes.
Next add the lemongrass and keep grinding and pounding, being sure to fully finish incorporating one ingredient before adding the next. Follow the lemongrass with the galangal. At any point when the ingredients feel too wet, start adding the spices back in to absorb some of that juice.
Next up is the lime leaf and coriander root/stems. Sometime around the galangal and lime leaves is a good time to add in the salt as well. Where the powdered spices act as a nice absorption layer, the salt acts as an abrasive layer to give you extra help grinding some of the fibrous ingredients.
Now add the shallots and garlic, either with the shallots first or at the same time. Since these are softer ingredients, they can go together, and they shouldn’t take as long to grind down.
The final ingredient will be the shrimp paste. You’re mostly just incorporating it into the paste at this point and making sure everything is as finely pounded as you can.
How to Use and Store Thai Green Curry Paste
Once made, you can store green curry paste in a container in the fridge for about 1 week. If you wish to make a larger batch, you can also freeze curry paste for at least 3 months before the taste begins to degrade.
While the most obvious use for the green curry paste is to make Thai Green Curry, you can also utilize it for many other applications.
Add some paste to soups for a pop of flavor.
Add to fried rice for color and heat.
Mix with scrambled eggs for a new spin on breakfast.
Use as a marinade for meat or add to a stir-fry for a kick of heat.
You can even mix with some vinegar and oil to turn it into a salad dressing.
📋 Recipe
Thai Green Curry Paste (Nam Prik Gaeng Khiao Waan)
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons coriander seeds, , toasted
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds,, toasted
- 1 teaspoon white peppercorns
- 10-12 Thai chilis,, stemmed and sliced
- 2-3 Spur chilis, , stemmed and sliced
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3-4 Kaffir/Makrut lime leaves, , thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons lemongrass, about 1-2 stalks, , trimmed and thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoon galangal, about a 2-inch piece, , peeled and thinly sliced
- 2 teaspoons Kaffir/Makrut lime zest
- 2-3 coriander roots, , or 2 tablespoons cilantro stems
- 1 small shallot, , thinly sliced
- 5-6 cloves garlic
Directions
- Before beginning the grinding and pounding process with a mortar and pestle, be sure to have all your ingredients prepped and set out. The basic rule of thumb is to start with your hardest ingredients and work in order to the softest ingredients, with one exception I’ll mention in a moment.
- Start with your toasted cumin and coriander seeds and the white peppercorns. Grind into a fine powder and remove. The reason for removing them is that the powder acts as a nice absorber when you feel the ingredients are getting too wet.
- Now place your chilis in the mortar and begin grinding them slowly. The reason I start with the chilis is that they can release a lot of moisture as you work, and as you start lifting the pestle higher and pounding the ingredients, you don’t want chili juices spraying back into your face and burning your eyes.
- Next add the lemongrass and keep grinding and pounding, being sure to fully finish incorporating one ingredient before adding the next. Follow the lemongrass with the galangal. At any point when the ingredients feel too wet, start adding the spices back in to absorb some of that juice.
- Next up is the lime leaf and coriander root/stems. Sometime around the galangal and lime leaves is a good time to add in the salt as well. Where the powdered spices act as a nice absorption layer, the salt acts as an abrasive layer to give you extra help grinding some of the fibrous ingredients.
- Now add the shallots and garlic, either with the shallots first or at the same time. Since these are softer ingredients, they can go together, and they shouldn’t take as long to grind down.
- The final ingredient will be the shrimp paste. You’re mostly just incorporating it into the paste at this point and making sure everything is as finely pounded as you can.
Equipment Used
Notes
Your Notes
Nutrition
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