Easy to make, with normal ingredients – Homemade Yellow Curry Paste! Throw all ingredients into a food processor and be an instant curry master! It’s ready in 15 minutes and is perfect for curry night!
We are about to cross that invisible line between being good in the kitchen, into the territory of being EPIC in the kitchen because today, we make homemade yellow curry paste…completely from scratch!! Please don’t leave…I promise it’s easy. So easy I made a video! It’s actually a matter of throwing all ingredients in a food processor and blitzing. True story.
Over the last couple of years I’ve been on a curry journey. There was a time in my life not all that long ago where making curry involved opening a jar of butter chicken sauce and calling it a day. Nothing wrong with that, it’s a good sauce! A little bit later I was experimenting with different kinds of sauces from the jar. Rogan Josh? Yes. Korma? Definitely yes. Accidentally buying the spicy jar of tikka masala resulting in Josh & I sitting on the couch eating our dinner in our underwear with a box of tissues next to us as we were literally sweating buckets because we could not (and still can’t) handle the heat. Not so much.
Fast forward to the moment I discovered that I could buy curry paste and make the sauce at home by myself and feel like a superstar and I was starting to get pretty excited. And then of course, I had to take it one step further, because a girl just can’t quit! And now we have arrived at the magical place that is homemade yellow curry paste and you can make all the curry things in the world at the drop of a hat (Thai Spiced Pumpkin Soup anyone?) You have officially won the curry game.
When it comes to the coloured curry pastes (red, yellow, green) yellow is the most mild. So clearly, that’s the one we went for. I’ve made a note on the recipe to say that you can add more crushed chilli if you want it hotter but the recipe as it is, is really mild and would even be ok for kids. Or you could even leave the chilli out altogether. This is a judgement free curry making zone.
If you look up a recipe for yellow curry paste there are so many variations. It’s important to know that this one might not be the real deal in terms of authentic Thai curry ingredients (what even is galangal??) but I wanted to make it so that no special trip to the grocery store was needed. And it’s not! Other than the lemongrass & fresh coriander, the ingredients are probably all things that you have in your cupboard right now! But you can be prepared – I buy the tube of lemongrass paste from the fresh salad section at the supermarket because I do not have time in my life for figuring out fresh lemongrass…it’s hard to cut. And the tube stays fresh in the fridge for weeks. Win. I also use the crushed chilli that you can buy in a jar. I bought the tiniest jar and I swear it will probably last us for 10 years the rate we eat spicy food. But you can buy fresh chillies and use those instead.
Also, this particular homemade yellow curry paste lends itself more to Thai style cooking rather than Indian. I’ll share a recipe later in the week for the delicious Thai yellow chicken curry I make that uses this paste. And I’m still working on an Indian variety!
This recipe for homemade yellow curry paste makes about 1 cup. I use about 1/3 cup when I’m making dinner for the 2 of us, so it lasts us 3 meals and it keeps in the fridge for ages. Like, weeks and weeks. I found a jar hiding at the back of the fridge that I’m sure I made a couple of months ago and it was still good! It would also freeze well in portions.
Now go forth and become a curry master…homemade yellow curry paste is beckoning!
Easy to make, with normal ingredients - Homemade Yellow Curry Paste! Throw all ingredients into a food processor and be an instant curry master! It's ready in 15 minutes and is perfect for curry night!
- 1 onion (cut in quarters)
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 2" piece ginger (sliced)
- 1 TBSP ground coriander
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp ground tumeric
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 1 TBSP olive oil
- 1 TBSP lemongrass paste
- 1/4 c fresh coriander
- 1/2 tsp-1 TBSP crushed fresh chilli*
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Add all ingredients to a food processor or strong blender
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Blitz together until desired consistency is reached (once the onion and ginger are all blitzed up it's usually done)
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Use this in any recipe that calls for yellow curry paste. I use 1/3 cup for the 2 of us so 1 batch lasts 3 meals.
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Store in the fridge for several weeks or freeze
*We like our curries extremely mild so I only use 1/2 tsp of the fresh crushed chillis that you can buy in a jar next to the crushed garlic and ginger at the supermarket. Use more chilli depending on how hot you like it and remember that this quantity of curry paste will be split into 3 (cooking for 2 people).
1 tsp of fresh crushed chillies is equivalent to about 1 whole chilli, so you could also use fresh chilli.
