Homemade Thai Green Curry Paste

Here is a very simple recipe to make his Homemade Thai Green Curry Paste. Green curry is one of my favorite dishes of Thai cuisine. Making your homemade curry paste brings a lot of flavour to this dish!

For some time now, I have started to make my own homemade curry paste. Contrary to what you might think, homemade curry paste is very easy to make!

How to make your homemade Green Thai Curry Paste?

Kitchen utensiles: mortar and pestle

In order to prepare your homemade curry paste, it is strongly advised to have a mortar and a pestle. There is no special technique for using the mortar and pestle. It is very simple: all you have to do is crush the ingredients with vigor until you obtain a paste.

The advantage of the mortar and pestle is that by crushing all the ingredients, the essential oils are brought out which gives a pasty and homogeneous consistency to the mixture, without the addition of fat.

If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, it is possible to put all the ingredients in a blender. When using a blender, however, oil must be added to obtain an homogeneous consistency.

The essential ingredients

The only thing that’s important is to choose your ingredients carefully. For this recipe Homemade Thai Green Curry Paste, you will need the following ingredients:

• Green chilies
• Lemongrass
• Kaffir lime leaves
• Garlic
• Thai Shallot
• Galangal
• Cumin seeds
• Coriander seeds
• Shrimp paste

Some ingredients are a little hard to find. But here are some tips:

Green chilies

I advise you to really choose Thai chilies. They are small, long and thin peppers. You can find them in Asian grocery stores. For green curry paste, you should choose green chilies.

Green chillies are simply less ripe than red chillies. So another little tip from me: if you don’t have access to green chilies, Thai red chilies work very well too. The color will just be less green!

Lemongrass

Lemongrass as the name suggests gives a delicious citrusy aroma. It is found in many dishes of Indian and Southeast Asian cuisine. Note that it can be easily frozen! When I buy lemongrass, I immediately take several stems and freeze the ones I don’t use.

Kaffir lime leaves

The kaffir lime is a small lemon that originally comes from Indonesia and is found in many Thai dishes. Personally, it is one of my favourite flavours!

Kaffir lime leaves can be found in Asian grocery stores. They can be fresh, frozen or dried. I always have some in my freezer! If you have a green thumb, you can buy a small indoor kaffir lime.

Thai shallots

Thai shallots are small and round. They taste slightly milder than French shallots. If you can’t find a Thai shallot, I advise you to reduce the quantity by two at the risk of having a curry paste too strong in shallot.

Galangal

Galangal is a root that resembles ginger. It is also found in Asian grocery stores. Like lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, you can buy it frozen. If you find it fresh, I advise you to buy some more and freeze the rest.

Shrimp paste

Shrimp paste consists of fermented shrimp paste. Not very appetizing, right? Indeed, this paste has an awful smell and can absolutely not be eaten pure.

Be careful not to put too much into it to start with. Once used, personally, I keep it in the refrigerator in a sealed bag.

Go see my recipe for Vegetarian Green Thai Curry that I made with this paste.

How to store this homemade Thai Green Curry Paste?

The curry paste can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for a week. You can also freeze it.

Ideally, prepare a large quantity, divide it into small portions and freeze it. You can use an ice cube mould and each ice cube corresponds to one very spicy portion or two milder portions.

Feel free to leave me a comment if you liked this recipe or if you have any questions.