Authentic Homemade Thai Yellow Curry Paste

Yellow curry or gaeng garee is Thai comfort food, made with tender-braised meats in a rich coconut curry sauce that's incredibly aromatic from loads of spices. While there's nothing wrong with using a store-bought yellow curry paste, making your own from scratch can take your curry to the next level. It's also a really satisfying cooking project!

Once you've got the paste, you can use it in my yellow curry chicken, yellow curry beef, or even in a vegetable dish such as this quick cauliflower curry!

Important Disambiguation

There are 2 different Thai curries that are referred to in English as "yellow curry:" gaeng garee and gaeng lueang. This recipe is for gaeng garee, and let me clarify what these two are so you know which is which.

Gaeng Garee (this recipe), sometimes written as kaeng karee, is what most people know as yellow curry. It's a coconut milk-based curry that is mild and rich, typically made with braised chicken or beef, and contains potatoes and onions. If you walk into any standard Thai restaurant in the Western world, this is likely one they serve.

Gaeng Lueang, which is a southern Thai dish whose name actually means "yellow curry," though it is not one most people know. It is a water-based curry without coconut milk, which means it is light and brothy, and by Western standard it would be perceived more as a soup than a curry. It is a spicy and SOUR curry as tamarind is one of the main seasonings. If you want to get a better idea of what it is, it is basically my gaeng som sour curry recipe with turmeric added.

*IMPORTANT: When you are shopping for pre-made yellow curry paste, be sure to carefully read the label as people have mistakenly bought "Yellow Sour Curry Paste," thinking that it is the paste for gaeng garee!

Ingredients

Here are ingredients you'll need and some helpful info. For amounts and instructions, see the recipe card below!

• Mild dried red chilies, I usually use guajillo peppers which can be found at Latin American stores. Korean gochugaru will work in a pinch. In Thailand, they would use dried spur chilies which are very hard to find here.
• Spicy dried chilies (optional). Yellow curries can be quite mild, but if you want to add some heat, add any kind of smaller spicier dried chilies such as Thai or chiles de arbol.
• Coriander seeds, toasted
• Cumin seeds, toasted
• White peppercorns, black will also work.
• Salt, if pounding curry paste by hand, coarse salt is preferable as the abrasion helps breakdown the herbs.
• Curry powder. There's no need to look for "Thai curry powder" as this is an ingredient that came to us by way of India! Any curry powder you have at your local store will work, as long as you like how it smells! Personally love the Japanese S&B brand curry powder.
• Lemongrass, bottom half only, which is where most of the flavours are. You can save the tops and freeze them and add to stock or soups, anywhere that would benefit from a subtle lemony aroma.
• Ginger
• Galangal
• Fresh turmeric. This is the ingredient responsible for the "yellow" in yellow curry paste. I prefer fresh here as I think it tastes better, and they are quite available these days especially at healthy grocery stores. But if you only have turmeric powder it will also work.
• Garlic
• Shallots, finely chopped
• Fermented shrimp paste, called gapi in Thai, this funky paste adds umami and is traditional in Thai curries. Omit if vegetarian, or substitute miso paste.

How to Make Yellow Curry Paste in a Mortar and Pestle

Here's how to make the yellow curry paste by hand, with the help of a coffee grinder for dry spices. I highly recommend reading my notes on tools for making Thai curry paste below before you start so you can choose the right tools for you.

1. Pound the lemongrass, galangal, ginger and turmeric into a fine paste.
2. Grind all of the dried spices, including dried chilies, in a coffee grinder, then add to the mortar along with the garlic and shallots.
3. Pound into a fine paste and then add shrimp paste and pound to mix.
4. The yellow curry paste paste is now ready to use, or it can be frozen.

Important notes on tools for making curry paste

The tools you use to grind curry paste will significantly affect how much time this recipe takes. Please read the following notes before you start.

• Using a coffee/spice grinder for dry ingredients is the most significant time-saving step, because grinding dried chilies by hand is the most time-consuming part. So do this regardless of which tools you use to grind the fresh herbs.
• For the fresh herbs, using a good immersion blender will save the most amount of time. This is how I normally make curry paste. See my post on how to make red curry paste for more details on how to use it.
• If using a mortar and pestle, you should use a heavy-duty granite set that is large enough for the amount of paste (3-cup capacity/5-6 inch internal diameter is the minimum I would recommend for this recipe). It's a royal pain in the behind, if not actually impossible, to try to pound curry paste in a cute little marble set!
• I don't recommend using a food processor for this, as it doesn't get the paste fine enough, and it requires you to make quite a large amount for the blades to even blend properly.
• A jug blender is not ideal as it requires you to add quite a bit of liquid to the paste so that it will blend properly. This is not the end of the world, but you'll have to account for this extra liquid and make adjustments accordingly when you cook with this paste because most recipes (and all of mine) are not meant to be used with a runny curry paste. If you're confident in making these adjustments, go for it.

Storage

If you plan to use the curry paste within a week, you can keep it in the fridge in an airtight container. But if you have no plans for it yet, definitely freeze to maintain flavours of the herbs and spices.

All Thai curry pastes freeze exceptionally well. You can put it in a freezer bag and flatten it so that it will be quick to thaw, and remove as much air as possible before sealing. If you don't want to use freezer bags, mason jars will work, but you may have to let it thaw a bit so it's soft enough to scoop. Commercial curry pastes can often be scooped directly from frozen because the large amount of salt (added for preservation purposes) prevents it from freezing solid. Homemade pastes usually contain less salt and therefore freeze harder.

PRO TIP: If you are freezing multiple portions of curry paste in the same freezer bag, after flattening the paste, use the back of a knife or something flat to create a "crease" that separates the curry paste into portions. This will make it easier to take out one portion at a time.

Different ways to Use Yellow Curry Paste

Of course you're thinking about making a yellow curry, so this yellow curry chicken or yellow curry beef are probably what you'll make first. But, there's more you can do!

You can use Thai curry pastes in many ways. Try stir frying with it in this cauliflower curry stir fry recipe, or try substituting it for the curry paste in this Thai sausage recipe. Also check out my video on 5 ways to use curry paste (besides making a curry!)