Homemade Thai Yellow Curry Paste
Posted By Savita
Thai Yellow Curry Paste - a spiced red chili and turmeric paste often used to make Coconut Thai Yellow Curry. My homemade yellow curry paste version is made with easy to find ingredients, is gluten free, also dairy and soy free. Perfect for cook a healthy weeknight dinner in few minutes.
This post is part of "Use Your Food Processor" series. Earlier we made Green Curry Paste, Red Curry Paste and Instant Mashed Cauliflower using our trusty food processor. Today, let's blend some fresh Yellow Curry Paste.
Yellow Curry is not so common curry in US Thai restaurants. Mostly you will see Red Curry and Green Curry on the menu unless visiting a more authentic Thai Eatery. Regardless, if you look closely in soup section of either, one soup featuring Yellow Thai Curry called Khao Soi is always on menu. This soup has base of Khao Soi paste which is a version of yellow curry paste blended with shrimp paste.
Just like other curry pastes, Thai Yellow Curry Paste is much more than just a convenience and delicious curry base. It is healthy and perfect to serve a homemade lite curry soup or curry main course dinner at moment's notice.
Yellow curry paste ingredients are all fresh and healthy such as ginger, garlic, turmeric, red chili, and cilantro. All of these are full of vitamins, and have anti-bacterial benefits as well. Specially, turmeric and ginger are great for immune boost, and fast internal healing. Homemade version is specially better because it has all natural ingredients and no artificial colors or preservatives.
Just so you know, Yellow Curry is also mildest curry of all three most loved Thai curries - Red Curry, Green Curry and Yellow Curry. It is close cuisine of Red Curry but has more curry powder flavor. and yellow tone due to turmeric. Every paste in Thai Pastes group features a star ingredients.
Red Curry Paste has Thai red chilies.
Green Curry Paste has Green chilies.
Yellow Curry Paste has Turmeric.
Note: For this recipe, I have used mix of fresh turmeric root and powder.. You can also use all dry powder. Let me know if you decide to use only powder, I can tell you the quantity.
How to Use Yellow Curry Paste?
There are endless ways to use this curry paste. Pretty much all recipes which use Red Curry Paste can also use Yellow Curry for a mild, curry and turmeric forward flavor.
This is one curry paste that you would often find in my refrigerator, even when no Thai dish is in menu.. It has all flavors of a classic Coconut Chicken Curry or Yogurt Chicken Curry. I enjoy the convenience of fresh blended paste in refrigerator. This helps me serve a curry dinner under 30 minutes. No matter what is the protein.
This recipe for Yellow Curry Paste yields 1/2 cup of paste. But is can be doubled/tripled easily. (Quantity will be little less when using turmeric powder instead of turmeric root.)
Stay tuned for a delicious recipe using Yellow Curry Paste next week.. Wish you a happy weekend.
-Savita
Some great ways to use Yellow Curry Paste. Just add some grated tomatoes.
Ingredients
- 1-2 Turmeric (root)
- Shallot Onions (1/4 cup when chopped)
- Garlic
- 1 Ginger
- 1/4 Cup Cilantro (stems)
- 2 tsp Whole Spices (*direction for details)
- 1 Lime (medium)
- 1 tbsp Agave Syrup (pr palm sugar/jaggery)
- Olive Oil (*direction for details)
- Salt
- 5-6 Thai Red Chili (or bird's eye chili, or dried chili soaked in hot water.)
- 1 tsp Turmeric
Directions
-
1.
To make Yellow Curry Paste, start with *spices. I use combination of cumin and coriander. One teaspoon of each, slightly toasted in pan and then ground in mortar pestle or spice grinder.
Additional Notes:
*You can also replace coriander, cumin and turmeric powder from this recipe with mild Curry Powder. - 2. Work on fresh ingredients: Small dice red thai chilies. (to reduce heat, you can remove seeds from chilies. Wear gloves when dealing with seeds). Also chop rest of ingredients - shallots (2-3 medium, 1/4 cup when chopped), garlic cloves (4-5 cloves, 2 tbsp when diced), ginger (4 inch, peeled, rough chopped), cilantro stems (1/4 cup), zest of a lime, 1 tbsp plam sugar or agave, and 2 inch turmeric rough chooped. Add everything to food processor.
- 3. Start by **adding 1 tbsp olive oil to make smooth paste. Add a little more at time until paste forms. Don't use water or any other liquid. (I add 1/2 tsp of salt - adjust to taste later when making curry). When paste is fine processed, remove in a container with lid. Keep refrigerated for up-to 2 weeks. Enjoy whenever you crave yellow curry.
© Chef De Home. Post content including video and photos are copyright protected.