Thai Green Curry is one of those recipes it’s hard to go too wrong on. Our Thai Green Curry version teaches you how to make it 100% authentic right at home. We do our best to make it really easy for you with step-by-step image directions.
There is more than one way to cook a Thai Green Curry to perfection. One thing you’ll find is that many Thai Green Curry recipes online are quite involved and require a lot of time and effort to cook properly. Those difficult green curry recipes make the curry paste from scratch. They are all great recipes, but the truth is, when you go out to eat in Thailand most places make it like we do here in this recipe (with green curry paste).
Table Of Contents:
100% Authentic Thai Green Curry
If I can make an authentic Thai curry using paste, anyone can. Outside of its great taste, the best part about this green curry is that it’s so easy to make. Just make sure to use a freshly made, pre-made paste that includes all the correct ingredients of the actual green curry paste. If you can’t attain a good curry paste, then you need to make it from scratch to experience what it really should taste like. This recipe only takes around 20-30 minutes in total your first time making it. It’s all cooked on your stovetop in a saucepan, so the cleanup is easy as well.
Where To Find Thai Green Chili Paste
- Your local Asian market
- The grocery store
- Or online on Amazon are all good options
A proper green chili paste includes all the fresh ingredients you’d use to make it from scratch. The key is to find a quality pre-made chili paste. As long as you get a good quality green chili paste, you can cook a quick, tasty and authentic Thai green curry. And thanks to the coconut milk, it is the perfect compliment to a Thai food loving ketogenic diet too.
Green Curry v Red Curry: Both are “standard” delicious Thai recipes. Red curry recipes will be slightly sweeter. We have a tasty red curry, Panang Curry recipe here on the blog.
Paleo & Keto Diet Considerations
Whether you’re on a ketogenic diet, Paleo diet, gluten-free diet or even vegetarian (this is one of the best Thai recipes to make vegetarian), you will love this Thai green curry recipe because it’s low carb and uses only natural clean ingredients. We’ll call it a Keto Thai Green Curry recipe. What we do is replace the organic palm sugar that this recipe requires in a way that replicates the flavor 100% using freshly brewed stevia leaves instead of the extract. This keto dish has been a standard everyday meal in Thailand for centuries.
Onto the recipe..
Recipe Ingredients
Thai Green Curry ingredients:
- Coconut milk
- Green Thai curry paste (make sure there’s no MSG added)
- Sweet basil
- Kafir lime leaves
- Chicken quarter
- Small eggplant
- Red pepper
- Smaller round green eggplants.
- Coconut oil
- Stevia leaf: we brew a stevia tea to replace the organic palm sugar (keto, low carb)
- Bone broth (water works, but broth is better for the final result)
Step 1. Slice The Vegetables
Everything will get sliced except for the small green eggplants. This image shows how we sliced these ingredients.
The larger eggplants first:
Then the red peppers which are added towards the end.
We used these as a garnish.
Clean and slice all the vegetables.
Then, Slice the chicken.
Once these are all cleaned and cut, the cooking steps start.
Step 2. Saucepan & Thai Green Curry Paste
Turn on the stove, put the sauce pan on and add coconut oil. Let the coconut oil heat up a bit before adding the green curry paste.
Coconut oil’s smoking point is 350 degrees.
You can let it get pretty hot when you use coconut oil, but you still don’t want to get it too hot in case you cross that 350-degree mark.
This is how much coconut oil we used:
Step 3. Cook the Chicken in the Curry Mix
Before adding the chicken, add about 5 tablespoons of coconut oil.
Then, once the coconut oil, green Thai chili paste and coconut milk have cooked together for a minute or two, put the raw chicken inside your pan.
Here’s what this step looks like when you add the coconut milk to the chili paste in your sauce pan.
Let it cook a bit, then add in your raw sliced/torn chicken:
Step 4. Add in more ingredients
Let the chicken cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring over low to medium heat.
If you like to consolidate time and do things fast, this is a good time to heat up some water and make stevia tea from dried stevia leaves for your low carb or no carb sugar replacement. Authentic Thai green currys do use a bit of organic palm sugar. A bit of stevia tea is a perfect replacement.
First add the bigger, sliced eggplants.
Then add in more coconut milk.
But first, let this medley cook for a minute or 3 (over low to medium heat).
Then, the coconut milk:
The only things left to put in are the tiny caper-looking eggplants, the sweet basil, the stevia tea, the kefir lime leaves and the red peppers.
Add in the tiny-caper-eggplants (I will one day find out their official name!), and let it simmer over low heat.
At this point, your table should be looking a bit like this image below.
Step 5. Add bone broth (or water)
There are a few different ways to do this step.
- Use bone broth to add and make the green curry soup
- Use water to make the green curry soup
- Don’t add broth. Don’t add water. Make this a non-soup dish and place over a cauliflower rice (a very fine option as well!)
I will include the image of the bone broth-adding we did just to show you.
We just added a bit to make it more soup-like.
If you don’t have the bone broth handy, that’s 100% fine – you can use water.
Using bone broth to make it into the green curry soup is ideal for optimal health reasons. But both water or broth at this step works fine. Kettle & Fire have a good boxed bone broth. Making it from scratch will always be best and it doesn’t have to take a long time.
The finishing touches:
Lastly, add these ingredients in:
- sweet basil
- kaffir lime leaves
- red peppers
- a few tablespoons of stevia tea
You really cannot go wrong with this recipe. And like emphasized before, the secret is the paste. It needs to be fresh and authentic. They’re available in the states, but you might have to hunt them down. Online they’re available too. You can visit our keto resources page to find all the low carb keto ingredients we use to replace common ingredients in Thai food.
Finished [Keto] Thai Green Curry
If you regularly ate Thai food each week, you’d have only so much meal-space to fit this Thai Green Curry in because of how many other standard amazing Thai recipes there are. This is a creamy, sweet and spicy coconut soup that can be made with chicken, shrimp or even be made vegetarian.
Thai Green Curry Recipe Card (Keto Green Curry)
Thai Keto Green Curry
Good for the ketogenic diet, Paleo diets, and for everyone on any diet.
This Thai Green Curry has healthy fats from the chicken skin and coconut milk which make it good for a light keto lunch. It’s low carb and uses zero sugar. It has Paleo suitable ingredients and is an all-around amazing dish!
Traditionally, you would eat this with a side of white rice. White rice is gluten-free so this will work for both Paleo and ketogenic diets, but if you’re looking to cut down the carbs, then another option is *cauliflower rice* which has fewer carbs and more fiber than traditional white rice.
I like to just eat it as a soup when looking to keep carbs low… a tantalizing, tasty Thai Green Curry Chicken with Coconut Milk soup. But the flavor combination you get from dipping spoonfuls of white rice inside is almost unbeatable!
- quarter whole Chicken (smash bones and place in raw chicken)
- 5 grams Eggplant (medium sized)
- 5 grams Tiny Eggplants (small ones that look like large capers)
- 3 grams Red Pepper (for looks)
- 10 pieces Sweet Basil (an important herb to add)
- 10 whole Kafir lime (use whole leaves, not the lime)
- 1 tbsp Coconut oil (tasteless) (for cooking the chicken in the beginning of the recipe)
- 10 tbsp Stevia Tea (or organic palm sugar) (low carb sugar substitute)
- 1/2 cup Bone Broth or water (bone broth is best, but water works great too)
- 2 tbsp Fish Sauce (to taste)
- 1 cup Coconut Milk (aroy-d)
-
For the Green Curry Ingredient Prep: At least 1 hour before serving
Chop all your herbs and vegetables. The only ones not getting chopped are the tiny round eggplants (and the Sweet Basil can stay whole as well).
Start your pan over low to medium heat with coconut oil. Once the coconut oil is heated, place the green chili paste in the pan with it. Then, stir for 3 minutes before adding in your coconut milk, about 5 tablespoons. After this heats up, you will add in your freshly cut chicken. Cook these together for 10 minutes in the sauce over medium heat.
-
Wrapping things up: Once the chicken has cooked enough to serve
Combine all the ingredients now into the saute in this order. First, the sliced eggplant. Second, more coconut milk. Third, the small round caper-looking eggplants. At this point, add in a small amount of water or preferably bone broth if you have some. This is what transforms it into a green curry coconut soup.
-
To Assemble: Serve and enjoy with white rice…
Normally this is eaten with a side of white rice. To keep it keto you can consume it with a side of cauliflower rice. It would be just as good as the highlight of this dish is the coconut milk/green chili paste combination. Also, if you sense it does not have enough zing to it, add in a couple more drops of the fish sauce. This blends perfectly and adds a wonderful slight saltiness. Don’t put too much fish sauce or you’ll ruin your plate.
When searching for other methods of making a Thai green curry, I found a few great ones online. Jamie Oliver’s Green Curry was one of them. It’s nice to see a pro chef like Jamie Oliver make a Thai green curry. He uses a food processor instead of a mortar and pestle so it’s not as authentic, but it’s a good one.
Jamie Oliver’s Thai Green Curry:
.
If you liked this low carb Keto Thai Green Curry, please share this post or comment below to let us know.
Thanks for coming by the blog!
More Recipes from Nutrition Adventures:
- Easy & Authentic Low Carb Khao Soi Recipe
- Our Keto Pad Thai Recipe
- A Perfect Keto Breakfast: Eggs with Cucumber & Gourd
- Low Carb & Authentic Shrimp Tom Yum Soup Recipe
Connect with us on social: We’re on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!
Louise says
The best green curry I’ve ever made!
John says
Thank you, Louise!!!