Kroeung vs Thai curry paste
The short answer
Neighbours with the same aromatics and a different idea of what a paste is for. Both pound lemongrass, galangal and makrut lime; Thai curry paste builds in chilli and shrimp paste, and kroeung builds in neither. Khmer cooks add heat at the table and savouriness from prahok, fermented fish, so a yellow kroeung is fragrant and mild where a Thai green curry paste is fierce.
Side by side
| Kroeung | Thai curry paste | |
|---|---|---|
| Defining ingredients | lemongrass, galangal, Makrut lime zest and leaf, garlic, Shallot | 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 |
| Origin | Cambodia, where kroeung is the foundation of soups, curries, grills and the steamed fish amok. | 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. |
| Cuisines | Cambodian | Thai, Vietnamese |
| Heat | None in yellow and green kroeung; moderate in red. | 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. |
| Flavour | Bright, citrus and green: lemongrass and makrut lime in front, galangal’s peppery warmth and turmeric’s earthiness underneath, with no heat in the yellow and green pastes. | 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. |
| Aroma | Not established | Not established |
Can you swap them?
Substitution is directional: the answer is often different in each direction, and both are recorded.
Thai curry paste
PoorThe aromatics are close — lemongrass, galangal, makrut lime — which is why the swap is suggested. But Thai pastes carry chilli and shrimp paste, and kroeung carries neither: amok made with Thai paste is hot and shrimp-savoury where the Khmer dish is fragrant and mild.
| Flavour | Aroma | Colour | Heat |
|---|---|---|---|
| partial | close | close | more |
Works for
- A Khmer red curry, using a small amount of Thai red paste
Does not work for
- Fish amok
- Yellow and green kroeung dishes, which have no chilli
Cuisine: Moves the dish from Cambodian to Thai.
Which should you buy?
Kroeung
By colour first. Yellow kroeung, led by fresh turmeric, is the everyday paste and the most versatile; green kroeung uses the green tops of lemongrass for colour and a fresher flavour; red kroeung adds soaked dried red chillies and is used in curries. Within each, households shift the balance of galangal, fingerroot and garlic. Chilli is what the three do not share, which is the practical difference from a Thai paste.
Thai curry paste
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.
Full detail on kroeung and thai curry paste, including evidence grades and sources for every claim above.