Thai Green Curry Paste Recipe

The other week, I was making one of my favorite Thai green curry-based meals on Instagram stories and quite a few of you asked for my homemade Thai green curry paste recipe. I was kind of shocked, because before our trip to Thailand, I wasn’t a huge curry fan. Who knew there were so many genuine curry fans out there? I’ll also be honest again — before we spent a day at Thai Farm Cooking School, I had no idea that to make curry, you used a paste. I’ll give you a second here to chuckle at my ignorance…But really – I had no clue! So when we began grinding away with our mortar and pestle, I was like…wait, what is happening here?! Who knew that a love affair with curry paste was about to begin…

Thai Green Curry Paste Recipe

Anyway, we brought home a boat load of amazing recipes and homemade Thai green curry paste was one of them. I use this as a base for almost every Thai dish I make, because it’s packed with so much flavor. You don’t need a ton to create a winning recipe and the effort of making paste pays off ten-fold when people come over for dinner and they’re like…YOU MADE THIS?! Yes, yes I did. So today I’m sharing my Thai Green Curry Paste recipe. While intimidating at first, I think you’ll be shocked by how easily it all comes together!

Thai Green Curry Paste Recipe

To make this Thai Green Curry Paste at home, you will need:

2-3 long green chili peppers

2 Thai chili peppers

1 tbsp. chopped shallots

1 tsp. chopped ginger

1/2 tsp. chopped lime rind (kaffir lime is preferred if you are able to find it!)

1 tbsp. chopped lemongrass

1 tbsp. Thai ginseng (the only place I’ve found this is in one of our local Chinatown marketplaces)

1/4 tsp. roasted cumin seeds

1/4 tsp. roasted coriander seeds

1/2 tsp. salt

Put all of your ingredients in a mortar and grind into a paste using the pestle. It will be tough as first, but it can all be ground thoroughly and will begin to become a paste.

*If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, feel free to use your blender. If I’m feeling lazy or doubling my recipe, I will toss it all in my Vitamix.

To use the paste, simply add it to coconut milk to create a curry, adding vegetables as you wish! I enjoy adding eggplant, broccoli and potato, while Dane likes to add chicken and peppers to his. My rule for making curry is for every 1 tbsp. of paste, add in 1 cup of coconut milk and 1 cup of water or broth and cook over medium. When it is fragrant, adding in your veggies or meat and turn up the heat. (Ha! Totally did not intend to rhyme). Add in a dash of fish sauce, salt, pepper, fresh basil and some lime juice and you’re good to go!

If you enjoyed this recipe, you might also like my Sweet Potato Noodle Pad Thai or Salted Billionaire Dessert Bars!