Vegetarian Thai Green Curry

If you’ve been around here for awhile, you know that Dane and I go crazy for Thai food. We learned so many simple tips about creating easy Thai dinners from classic recipes during our trip to Thailand a few summers ago. Admittedly, curry was pretty intimidating to me, before we learned how to make curry paste at the Thai Farm Cooking School. For the vegetarian Thai green curry recipe I’m sharing today you can use my green curry paste recipe or simply pick some up from the store (this Green Curry Pasta from Thai Kitchen is a good one!).

Vegetarian Thai Green Curry

The best part about today’s Thai curry recipe is that the ingredients are completely up to you and totally dependent upon what you’ve got ready in your refrigerator. Sometimes I lovingly refer to this as “refrigerator cleanup curry”, because I throw in whatever vegetables need to get used up. If you’re wanting to make this a bit more substantial, feel free to add in chicken or shrimp. Additionally, while white rice is shown, this green curry is also delicious with quinoa, black rice and cauliflower rice. See – you can truly make it into anything you want, which is the best part! Now, let’s get down to the recipe for this delicious vegetarian Thai green curry shall we?

Vegetarian Thai Green Curry

Are you hungry yet? My stomach is growling just looking at the recipe all over again. On this specific night, I threw in chopped up Brussel sprouts I had leftover, some green beans and onions. It was freaking delicious and I ate it over and over again that week since I was flying solo at home. Word to the wise: green curry (or any curry recipe, really) is always better as the days go on! In my mind, it gives the flavors more time to mingle together to create a really robust taste.

To recreate this recipe at home, you will need:

1 tbsp coconut oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

vegetables of your choosing (In my ideal curry world, this looks like 1 bell pepper, sliced, 1 onion, sliced, and 1 cup broccoli florets)

3 tbsp green curry paste

1 can full fat coconut milk

2 cups vegetable broth

2 tbsp. fish sauce

2 tbsp lime juice

1 drop lemongrass essential oil (or fresh lemongrass if you have it – I tend to use oils because the stringy/woody lemongrass is slightly unappealing — but that might just be me!)

1. In a large saute pan, heat the coconut oil over medium heat until liquid.

2. Add in garlic and when fragrant, toss in vegetables.

3. When vegetables soften slightly, add in curry paste, making sure it coats all the vegetables. You may need to use your spatula to spread it around!

4. Saute for around 3-5 minutes, then add in the can of full fat coconut milk.

5. Make sure to mix the coconut milk around really well so that the curry paste starts to mix with the milk and color it.

6. When this happens, add in the broth and stir.

7. Turn up heat and bring to a soft boil, then turn to low, stir in fish sauce, lime juice and lemongrass.

8. Let simmer for 20 minutes, then serve.

I typically serve my curry with rice, cauliflower rice or quinoa, but I’ve certainly eaten it with anything and it’s equally good. If I was good at making sticky rice like they do in Thailand to form rice balls to dip into the curry – I would do that! Sadly, my sticky rice knowledge is incredibly limited. 

Sometimes people tell me that they are intimidated to create Thai recipes in their kitchen, but I promise you, they are so simple and once you really get into the groove of them, they become easier and easier. If you attempt this at home, I would love to know what you think! Happy eating 🙂