Thai curry paste
Also known as green curry paste, red curry paste, yellow curry paste, krueng gaeng, nam prik gaeng
Quick answer
The pounded wet paste at the base of a Thai curry, and a family rather than one mixture: green from fresh chillies and the hottest, red from dried ones, yellow with turmeric and the dry spices that came with foreign trade.
In essentially every version: Chilli — fresh green or dried red, Galangal, Lemongrass, Makrut lime zest and leaf, Garlic, Asian shallot, Kapi — fermented shrimp paste, Coriander root, Coriander seed, Cumin, White pepper, Salt.
3distinct versions are recorded below. None of them is presented as the correct one, because there isn’t one.
What goes in it
The defining core first, then the versions. Roles are recorded so it is clear what each ingredient is doing.
| Ingredient | Role | How essential |
|---|---|---|
| Bird's eye chilli (fresh)The component that names the paste. Fresh green bird’s eye for green curry, dried and soaked red chillies for red — and the counter-intuitive consequence is that green curry is usually the hotter of the two, because fresh bird’s eye chillies are used whole and in quantity while the dried red chillies used for red paste are typically milder large varieties. | heat | defining |
| Galangal (fresh)Not ginger, and the substitution is the commonest way a curry paste made outside Thailand goes wrong. Galangal is sharper, piney and almost medicinal where ginger is hot and sweet. | primary aromatic | defining |
| Lemongrass (fresh)Only the tender lower stalk, sliced thinly across the grain before pounding — lemongrass is fibrous enough that a coarse cut leaves splinters in the finished curry. | primary aromatic | defining |
| Makrut lime leaf (fresh)The zest of the knobbled fruit as much as the leaf, and it is the zest that most identifies a Thai paste. Both carry citronellal in quantity. | primary aromatic | defining |
| Garlic (fresh) | base | defining |
| Onion (fresh) | base | defining |
| Shrimp pasteThe savoury foundation, and the ingredient that makes a paste taste Thai rather than merely aromatic. It is fermented, intensely pungent raw, and mellows entirely on frying. Vegetarian versions omit it and are noticeably thinner as a result, which is worth saying plainly rather than pretending the substitution is free. | savoury depth | defining |
| Coriander leaf (fresh)The root rather than the leaf, which is a distinctively Thai use: it is earthier, more concentrated and does not have the soapy quality some people taste in the leaf. Sold with the roots attached in Southeast Asian shops and trimmed off everywhere else. | supporting aromatic | usual |
| Coriander seed (whole)Toasted and ground. Coriander and cumin are the dry-spice fraction, and their prominence rises from green through red to yellow. | supporting aromatic | usual |
| Cumin (whole) | supporting aromatic | usual |
| White pepper (ground)White rather than black, which is the Thai preference generally and predates the arrival of chilli — pepper was the heat in Thai cooking before the Columbian exchange, and it survives in the pastes as a background pungency. | heat | usual |
| Turmeric (fresh)What makes yellow curry yellow, and largely absent from green and red. Fresh rhizome where it can be had; the powder is duller and more bitter. | colour | regional |
| Salt (ground) | salt | usual |
The three colours are canonical and the differences between them are real rather than cosmetic. Green (gaeng khiao wan) uses fresh green chillies and fresh green herbs, is the most vividly aromatic and is usually the hottest. Red (gaeng phet) uses dried red chillies soaked and pounded, which gives a deeper, sweeter, less grassy paste. Yellow (gaeng kari) carries turmeric and a much larger dry-spice fraction — coriander, cumin, cinnamon, sometimes curry powder itself — and is the paste most shaped by Indian and Persian contact through the southern peninsula. Beyond the three there are many named regional pastes: massaman, with its cardamom and cinnamon and its Persian-Muslim lineage; panang, thicker and sweeter; khua kling, a dry southern paste with no coconut milk at all. Household variation within each is wide, and commercial pastes are generally saltier, more chilli-forward and lower in the expensive fresh aromatics than a pounded one.
The versions
Each attributed, with how firm its proportions are stated plainly.
Green curry paste (gaeng khiao wan)
regional traditionalStandard central Thai practice · proportions representative · low confidence
Fresh green chillies pounded with the whole fresh aromatic set. The most fragrant of the three and generally the hottest, despite a name — khiao wan, "sweet green" — that describes the colour rather than the flavour.
| Ingredient | Parts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Fresh green bird’s eye chillies | 4 | 27% |
| Asian shallot | 3 | 20% |
| Lemongrass | 3 | 20% |
| Garlic | 2 | 14% |
| Galangal | 1 | 7% |
| Makrut lime zest | 1 | 7% |
| Kapi | 0.5–1 (typically 0.5) | 3% |
| Coriander seed | 0.25–0.5 (typically 0.3) | 2% |
Parts by fresh weight before pounding. Household proportions vary widely, particularly in the chilli.
Red curry paste (gaeng phet)
regional traditionalStandard central Thai practice · proportions representative · low confidence
Dried red chillies soaked and pounded, which gives a deeper and sweeter paste than the green and usually a milder one. The workhorse of the three, and the base panang and massaman are built from.
| Ingredient | Parts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Dried red chillies, soaked | 4 | 31% |
| Asian shallot | 3 | 23% |
| Lemongrass | 2 | 15% |
| Garlic | 2 | 15% |
| Galangal | 1 | 8% |
| Kapi | 0.5–1 (typically 0.5) | 4% |
| Coriander seed | 0.25–0.5 (typically 0.3) | 2% |
| Cumin | 0.1–0.3 (typically 0.2) | 2% |
Yellow curry paste (gaeng kari)
regional traditionalSouthern Thai practice, shaped by Indian and Persian contact · proportions representative · low confidence
Turmeric-led and much heavier on the dry spices than the other two, which is the trace of the trade routes through the southern peninsula. The mildest of the three and the one closest to what a European cook expects a curry to taste like.
| Ingredient | Parts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Asian shallot | 3 | 23% |
| Fresh turmeric | 2 | 16% |
| Dried red chillies, soaked | 2 | 16% |
| Lemongrass | 2 | 16% |
| Garlic | 2 | 16% |
| Coriander seed | 1 | 8% |
| Cumin | 0.5–1 (typically 0.5) | 4% |
| Kapi | 0.25–0.5 (typically 0.3) | 2% |
Using it
Fried first, and in the thick part of the coconut milk rather than in oil if the dish allows. A spoonful of paste goes into the cracked coconut cream and is cooked until the oil separates and the mixture darkens — three or four minutes, and visible rather than timed — before any liquid or protein is added. This is not a preference: the paste is raw, and frying is what converts a harsh mixture of raw allium and shrimp paste into the sweet aromatic base a curry is built on. A paste stirred into simmering liquid tastes raw and stays raw. Made in a granite mortar rather than a blender where possible, because pounding ruptures cells and releases oils in a way blades do not, and because a blender needs added liquid that dilutes the result.
Hot, citric, savoury and aromatic at once, over a fermented-seafood base that supplies most of the depth. The citrus is the part that distinguishes a Thai paste from an Indonesian one — makrut lime and lemongrass together produce a brightness bumbu does not have — and the shrimp paste is the part that distinguishes it from a herb paste. Green is grassiest and hottest, red deeper and sweeter, yellow the mildest and the most obviously spiced.
Moderate to fierce, and counter-intuitively distributed: green is usually the hottest because fresh bird’s eye chillies are used in quantity, and yellow the mildest.
- Coconut-milk curries of every kind
- Stir-fries, where a spoonful is fried in oil first
- Grilled and fried fish
- Soups, thinned into stock
- Marinades for chicken and pork
Scaling: Scales linearly by fresh weight. As with bumbu the frying does not scale linearly: a deeper layer of paste takes considerably longer to split, and frying a triple batch in one pan is the usual way a large batch stays raw.
Storage
Good for: 1–1 months (typically 1 months)
Refrigerated in a sealed jar under oil, or frozen in portions.
A moist, low-acid paste containing fermented seafood and raw allium. Keep it cold, keep it covered with oil, and discard it at any sign of mould rather than scraping the surface.
Allergens and safety
Not among the substances that must be declared as allergens under EU Regulation 1169/2011 Annex II or under the United States major food allergen rules. That is a statement about labelling law and not about whether allergy occurs: allergic reactions to spices are documented in the clinical literature and are simply not a labelling category. Where a ground spice presents an allergen risk it is usually through adulteration or shared processing equipment rather than through the plant itself.
Culture and origin
Thailand, where the pastes are a domestic and professional staple pounded in a granite mortar. The technique and the aromatic base — galangal, lemongrass, makrut lime, shrimp paste — are shared across mainland Southeast Asia; what distinguishes the Thai versions is the chilli treatment and the coriander root.
Thai household and professional cooking
Curry paste is made in a granite mortar and pestle, and the sound of one being pounded is domestic background noise in Thailand in the way a knife on a board is elsewhere. Households increasingly buy ready-made paste and improve it — adding fresh lemongrass, makrut zest and galangal to a commercial base is standard practice rather than a compromise — which is a useful thing for a cook outside Thailand to know, because it is the realistic route to a good curry without a mortar.
Southern Thailand and the Muslim south
The southern pastes carry the dry spices — turmeric, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cardamom — that the central and northern ones largely do not, and the reason is contact rather than climate: the peninsula sat on the trade route between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Massaman curry is the clearest instance, and its name is generally understood to derive from a word for Muslim.