Thai Green Curry Paste | Prik Gaeng Keow Wan

This Thai green curry paste recipe is authentic and very easy to follow. Made with fresh ingredients using the right method, it's also pungent, flavorful and totally preservative-free. Make this on the weekend and enjoy a quick bowl of green curry any weeknight!

Thai Green Curry

First, let's start by agreeing that Thai green curry or gaeng keow wan (แกงเขียวหวาน) is one of the most popular Thai dishes and curries in the world. Usually, we serve this curry with steamed rice. Likewise, thin fermented rice noodles, known as khanom jeen (ขนมจีน) in Thai are a great side to this dish as well. And if you want to go for fusion, try this Thai green curry spaghetti!

Apart from serving it with rice or rice noodles as a side, gaeng keow wan can also be enjoyed with roti and flatbread. If you want to make it more of a complete and satisfying meal, serve it with other simple Thai dishes such as nua dad deow (Thai sun-dried beef or Thai style beef jerky), Thai omelette or even Thai garlic pork.

And as green curry is a spicy dish. It might be a good idea to end your meal with a treat. Foor example, you can have a glass of nam krajeab or a small portion of mango sticky rice.

Authentic Thai Green Curry Paste

The recipe I'm sharing with you in this post is Thai green curry paste! This recipe is authentic and very, very good and certainly easy to follow. You can use it to make gaeng keow wan with any type of meat you want.

As for vegetables, I would only recommend eggplant, Thai sweet basil leaves and bamboo shoots because that's how we do it here. I won't lie it makes me cringe a bit every time I see carrots or broccoli in gaeng keow wan. However, I get that those vegetables are very easy to find and affordable in many places.

Additionally, you can use green curry paste to make green curry fried rice and green curry spaghetti too. That is to say don't think you have to be stuck with just green curry. The fried rice and spaghetti are amazing too. I can guarantee that you're going to love them.

Ingredients

Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the recipe at the bottom for quantities.

Ingredient Notes

Vegan Substitution for Shrimp Paste: You can use fermented soybean paste in place of the Thai shrimp paste. At the time of writing, this is the best compromise out there. Above all, I think it might be easier to find than Thai shrimp paste.

Preparing Thai Herbs and Spices: Preparing Thai herbs and spices can make you puzzled if you're not familiar with them. But seriously, though, that's okay. I promise, not every single Thai person knows how to use them and there are many ones out there that are local to certain regions that even I don't know what they're called or how to use them.

In this post, I'm going to explain how you can prepare the Thai herbs and spices needed for this authentic Thai green curry paste recipe. If there's anything that's unclear, you can refer to some of the pictures above or watch my video tutorial when you're preparing them.

• Galangal: You'll only use the root so you can cut the other parts off. Then, just rinse the root under running water, slice it up and dice it so that it'll be easier to pound.
• Lemongrass: Firstly, remove and discard the outermost leaf of each stalk. Then, cut off the root and the tougher part at the top because that part is too fibrous. If you use that part, you won't be able to make the paste fine, no matter how hard and how long you pound. After that, just finely chop the bottom part.
• Kaffir Lime: As with most Thai curry pastes, this recipe requires only the rind so, you can just use a knife to peel it off the fruit.
• Green Spur and Green Thai Chilies (Prik Chee Fah): Rinse and chop both types of chilies so that it's easier for you to make the paste fine enough in the end. In the video, you will see that I use the smaller chilies whole, but that's just a personal thing. You don't need to worry about this because it doesn't make much of a difference. 
• Garlic & Shallots: Peel both garlic and shallots and only slice the shallots.

Instructions

1. Prepare your herbs and spices. Please see the section above for more details.
2. Pound the shallots in a mortar with a pestle.
3. Add the garlic and continue to pound until quite fine.
4. Pour the coriander seeds, white peppercorns, galangal and lemongrass in and pound until there are no whole seeds or big chunks of anything.
5. Add the green spur chilies, green Thai chilies, Thai shrimp paste and curry powder and pound until everything blends together and the paste is fine enough or has reached your preferred consistency.

Tips

I recommend using a set of granite mortar and pestle to pound all the ingredients into a paste. Though it takes a bit of time, it's relatively easy. Most importantly, it will extract more flavors and fragrances from the herbs and spices, making your green curry paste very pungent!

If you don't have a mortar and pestle, you should certainly get them because we use them a lot to cook Thai dishes. Alternatively, you could use a blender or food processor, which will turn the herbs and spices into a paste too (and actually much quicker). But really, your green curry paste just won't be as good with this method.

Storing

You'll want to keep it in an airtight container and put it in the fridge. This way, the paste will be good for about 1 week. For those of you who like to make it in a large amount, you can freeze it in an ice cube tray, and it will be good for a few months.

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