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I’ve had this saved forever, but we finally made this! We broke it up over a couple of days. I think the real secret is that this recipe is better the next day or day after that. I’m eating the leftovers now and just text my hubs that this was good day 1, but day 3 it is incredible.
Caitlin
I am 120% sure that this is what my food dreams are made of. –>
Like most recipes in my life, this one starts and ends with the sauce. That velvety rich, fragrant, warming Thai yellow curry sauce with hints of coconut sweetness, flecks of green cilantro, delicate little strings of fresh ginger, punchy turmeric-yellow color, and a decent kick of Thai chile heat. It’s just barely thick enough to be like a creamy curry gravy but still saucy enough to make its way in and around every grain of rice. Perrrrfection.
So just give me a second to catch my breath.
Now, the actual curry, right? Think about that glorious Thai yellow curry sauce blanketing comforting-ly soft bites of Yukon gold potatoes, thinly sliced and sautéed shallots, and tender chunks of slow-simmered beef. And wait wait wait though. It’s all piled over a bowl of fluffy, fragrant, steaming Jasmine rice. Food dreams complete.
I would just like to point out that somehow, when I was distracted by the Thai yellow curry sauce, chunks of beef (as in b-e-e-f, like red meat, like the stuff I never hardly ever cook or eat) snuck into my food dreams. What in the what?
Superweird, but no time to question it. MORE CURRY NOW // MORE CURRY NOW // MORE CURRY NOW.
I’ll just start by saying I don’t normally cook recipes that involve a special trip to a special grocery store or require more than 20 minutes of prep. You know that about me.
But I made this recipe for a special occasion last week: my newly started dinner club with friends! And here’s the thing about this Thai yellow curry recipe: it’s 100% from scratch.
Meaning:
- you will literally make the curry paste from scratch. like, pulse it all together in your very own food processor or blender.
- many readers will now leave this blog.
- those of you who don’t will now check off the box for “make curry from scratch” from your foodie bucket list. *cheers and applause*
- even if it doesn’t turn out like you were expecting, making a curry from scratch makes you feel like THE MOST AWESOME cook. because you are.
- you will be giving yourself the gift of homemade yellow curry paste for at least two more recipes, because as written, you will end up with extra curry paste for later. this might actually be my favorite thing about the recipe.
- you might have guessed, and you’d be right – this recipe requires a trip to an Asian grocery store. unless you’re the person whose mainstream grocery store sells shrimp paste and galangal, in which case you are a very lucky duck.
- you don’t need to be a really fancy cook to make this – it’s really straightforward and at times it’s even hands-off. you will just need TIME. like, a few hours. save it for a Saturday or divide up each of the steps over a day or two.
And now, a close up shot of the curry paste because I’m a food blogger.
Exhibit A: the photo above shows what one hour of cooking time looks like. Coconut milk, beef, pan, one hour, go.
I actually made and photographed another whole recipe during the time that my beef was just simmering away and getting all wonderful in that buttery coconut milk.
And all the multi-taskers rejoiced!
You guys, I can’t even tell you how much fun I had making this for my friends, but really, just making it for me.
Most of my life revolves around food that is quick and easy and I’m always always always looking for shortcuts or ways to save time. So to have a time when I said – hey, look, I’m going to dedicate five hundred days to this just because I love cooking new things and because this is a life experience and because curry somehow runs in my Minnesota veins – was unusually therapeutic for me.
Truthfully? I don’t expect most readers to ever make this. It’s not practical. I totally get that and I almost felt like maybe I shouldn’t post the recipe because it’s such a beast.
BUT. If you love curry. If you love cooking. If you love watching something be created from nothing. And if you can find a few hours here and there over the course of a few days to get this all put together, you and I should probably talk.
And by talk, I mean eat heaping bowls of made-from-scratch Thai yellow curry together. ♡
I wish the best of the best of the curry worlds upon you, sweet readers! Go forth and enjoy this treasure of a recipe.
Thai Yellow Curry with Beef and Potatoes
- Total Time: 2 hours 50 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
Description
Thai Yellow Curry with Beef and Potatoes – made from scratch! Perfect creamy comfort food with huge flavor and a kick of spice.
Ingredients
For the yellow curry paste
- 2 shallots
- 1 head garlic
- 1 3-inch piece galangal, peeled and thinly sliced*
- 1 3-inch piece ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon roasted ground coriander
- 20 dried red Thai chiles softened in hot water
- 2 tablespoons turmeric
- 2 tablespoons curry powder
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
- 1 tablespoon shrimp paste*
- 1 1/2 tablespoons salt
- 1 tablespoon lemongrass paste
For the curry
- 2 lbs. beef chuck, trimmed and cut into cubes
- 3–4 cups light coconut milk
- 4 cups water, divided
- 2 cups coconut cream (canned)*
- 24 ounces Yukon gold potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 shallot, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1/2 cup minced cilantro
Instructions
- CURRY PASTE (one hour): Heat a cast-iron pan over medium high heat. Wrap the garlic and shallots in foil (with their paper on) and place on the skillet for 25 minutes, flipping once half way through. Remove from heat and cool, and roughly chop. Set aside. Layer the ginger and galangal in a single layer and wrap with foil. Place in the skillet and heat for about 10 minutes flipping once halfway through. Place garlic, shallots, ginger, galangal, and all other ingredients for the curry paste in a blender or food processor. Pulse until mostly smooth. Use water from the chiles to help the mixture run through the blender as needed. This will make a little more than 2 cups – set 3/4 cup aside for this recipe and freeze or refrigerate the rest for later.
- BEEF (one hour): Heat the light coconut milk in a deep pot. Add the beef and simmer for 45 minutes. Add 1 cup water and simmer another 15-20 minutes. Set aside; do not drain.
- CURRY (one hour): Heat the coconut cream in a deep pot until bubbling and starting to thicken a bit. Add about 3/4 cup curry paste and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the potatoes, shallots, beef, and 1/2 cup of the reserved coconut milk from step two. Stir in 3 cups water. Simmer for 30-45 minutes until potatoes are tender. Add the sugar, fish sauce, cilantro. Serve over jasmine rice.
Notes
*These ingredients will probably require a trip to an Asian grocery store. It’s worth it if you want to do it right! I would suggest buying 2-3x what you need in case you want to make it again.
As written, I would rate this as mild++.
As written, the recipe is exactly how I made it for my friends. But it felt a little greasy, so when I made it the second time I opted for coconut milk instead of coconut cream. The results were really good other than that it was very very very spicy. I would consider it medium+ if not straight up hot. So if you’re going to sub coconut milk for coconut cream, reduce the amount of curry paste to 1/2 cup or less (you can always add more later if you want).
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 2 hour 30 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Thai
Nutrition Facts
- Daily value: 26% Total Fat 20.5g
- Daily value: 41% Cholesterol 123mg
- Daily value: 79% Sodium 1822.5mg
- Daily value: 9% Total Carbohydrate 25.7g
- Daily value: 14% Dietary Fiber 4.1g
- Sugars 6.6g
- Daily value: 80% Protein 40.1g
- Daily value: 1% Vitamin A 9.1µg
- Daily value: 35% Vitamin C 31.3mg
Keywords: thai beef curry, beef curry with potatoes, yellow curry paste
PS. I’m anticipating questions about using store bought yellow curry paste, because I wondered the same thing myself. Honestly, I don’t remember the last time (if ever) that I’ve used store bought yellow curry paste so it’s really hard to me to say if that could be used in this recipe with similar results. I think it could? but I make no promises. Please leave a comment if you try it with the store bought paste so others know how to best adjust the recipe.
Made this recipe and loved it! My substitutes for galangal, dried thai peppers, and shrimp paste:
Substituted the galangal root for more ginger, some bruised lemongrass, lemon/lime zest, and some fresh ground black pepper. Substituted 20 thai chiles for 6 fresh serrano peppers with seeds. Subsituted
May I sub parsley for cilantro?
If I can’t find galangal, can it be eliminated without ruining the recipe?
Yes, you can use parsley!
I used your recipe as a guide (I had store bought yellow curry paste) and made one of the best curries of my life!! The technique to simmer the beef in coconut, and the timing for cooking the potatoes were perfect, thank you!!
I have fresh thai chiles; do you know how many I should add to make the paste?
Hi Linsay!
Looking forward to trying your great recipe.
I made a batch of curry a few nights ago using store bought curry, trying to replicate our fave local Thai haunt. The pre-made curry was not nearly as flavorable and way to spicy for our taste. The benefit of homemade is you can control the heat.
Most of the “authentic” recipes I found had kaffir lime leaves. Have you ever used those? They are a hard to find ingredient. I don’t know if they really add that much to the recipe.
Knocked my stove out of commission and had a dinner party to cook for so I turned to my favorite curry recipe (yours), and played magician with my air fryer (to roast the veggies), my instant pot (to cook the curry), and my microwave (to cook the rice)-and it was just as delicious, and maybe even a tad easier than normal to prep, cause I could just set and forget it once the initial prep was complete. 100% guessed on converting the time to instant pot pressure cook, and I feel like it’s almost foolproof. And let me tell you how much I appreciate your changes that allow me to get everything at my Walmart marketplace—save the bag of dried chilis that I purchased the first time I made this years ago, shrinkwrapped and saved in my freezer, which I still have barely dented the bag. I don’t miss the galangal or cutting up lemongrass, and for whatever reason, both stores were totally out of fresh cilantro, so I had to go with the cilantro paste, and despite everything going wrong that could, it was still the best beef curry I’ve had in ages. So-I APPRECIATE YOU more than words can say, you gave me the tricks to perfect my magic act, so thanks!
Hi, thanks for sharing this recipe!!
My mom and I made this tonight using our local asian market’s yellow curry paste. It’s delicious but a bit too spicy for us lol. Maybe we’ll try making our own curry paste next time instead of using store bought.
I’m South African, living in a city called Port Elizabeth/Gqeberha.
I don’t buy galangal. I go out to my back garden and dig some up! It’s amazing fresh, so if you live somewhere with a mild climate, and you see it for sale in a nursery, buy it. It’s not fussy at all. We’re subtropical here, but midwinter nights can get down to around 3 degrees Celsius. If you can grow lemongrass where you are, you can grow galangal.
We actually have lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, two varieties of chillis, a lemon tree, and a lime tree, as well as the galangal. It makes for some excellent dishes!
I must try this, but I hate Cilantro, what can I sub for it, thanks Lindsay.
You could try parsley!
Gathered together the ingredients to make your yellow thai chicken curry. You might make a note to be sure the coconut cream is unsweetened. What I discovered is that many coconut creams are not marked as sweetened. As a result my curry was wayyyyyyyyy too sweet. . I certainly didn’t add the brown sugar. I’ll try it again with an unsweetened cream of coconut.
Sorry to hear that, Pamela! Yes, we’d suggest using coconut cream and not cream of coconut, which is very sweet.
Love this recipe! A question though- for the cilantro in the paste, do you use leaves only or leaves and stems?
We use leaves and stems!
Hi Lindsay, hoping to make this recipe soon. Can I just clarify do you actually mean use 13inches (12 cm) of ginger?
Hi Kirstie! Sorry for the confusion. It should be one 3-inch piece of ginger.
I am so psyched to try this recipe! My husband loves Thai curries. Store bought can be very salt heavy, so I cannot wait to make this.
In the recipe, you have ‘curry’. Of course ‘curry’ just refers to a mixture of spices. There are literally 100’s of curries. What curry specifically works best with your recipe? A curry that makes this Yellow Curry Paste more authentic to Thai curry.
Would love to give this recipe 5 stars, but need to know the curry you are recommending. ❤️
We’d recommend yellow curry powder, like the basic variety found in the spice aisle at the grocery store. Enjoy!
I use garlic & ginger paste all the time! (I hate how fresh garlic feels on my fingers)
Can I use the puree instead of whole ginger, galangal, and garlic? Would I sill roast them?
Also, I’ll probably use only about 5 chilis, since kid 2 & I are babies when it comes to spice. Husband & kid 1 are a go for launch, though. Maybe I’ll puree some of the chilis to just add to their bowls?
(I am seriously sensitive to heat in my mouth. It’s embarrassing 😉)
Thanks for such a fun and informative blog!
Hi Dionne! We wouldn’t roast the garlic and ginger if you use the paste form. Your plan for the chiles sounds great. We hope you and your family enjoy the recipe!
The other day my wife made a curry that just didn’t come out quite right. I went to her recipe and came to this one to see what I could add to fix it. The result was great.
On another note the way you write the quantity for your pieces of ginger and galangal is a bit confusing. May I suggest that you write “a 3-in piece,” “1 three-inch piece”, “(1) 3-inch piece”, or simply “3-inch piece”? I also love recipes that give measurements in weight, though I know not everyone has a kitchen scale. 😊
All the best!
Great feedback. Thank you!
I’ve had this saved forever, but we finally made this! We broke it up over a couple of days. I think the real secret is that this recipe is better the next day or day after that. I’m eating the leftovers now and just text my hubs that this was good day 1, but day 3 it is incredible.
gawd I detest verbose bloggers especially ones who give up teaching … However the sight of the curry intrigued me very authentic the inclusion of galangal is the key to the recipe you’re a a dam good cook but go back to teaching .. the world could use your abilities yummy
Hi! I plan on making this tonight. For where it calls for coconut milk can I used canned? That’s what I get from my Asian market. They’re all labeled as coconut milk but it’s really coconut cream cus it’s very thick. Is there something different here that I should be using for the milk? Like the cartons grocery stores sell with the regular milk?
Thanks! Looking forward to making this. Hope my question made sense.
It’s actually the canned coconut milk that you’ll want here, so that’s perfect!
I made the yellow curry paste from this recipe and then made your chicken+potato curry and WOW! So delicious and authentic. Tastes just like the ones in Thai restaurants.
Wondering if you have plans in the future to develop a green curry paste recipe?
We don’t right now, but we’re always taking suggestions. Good to know that’s a recipe you’d be interested in seeing. Thanks for sharing, Jennifer!
I’ve made this a few times now, and I always quadruple the curry paste if I’m going to all the trouble 😉
I brought it to a church potluck last night and it was a big hit…even had a few people ask for the recipe.
Thanks for all you do!
So happy to hear this, Jennifer! 😊
I have found red and yellow curry at Walmart. Your recipe is so easy that I’m going to spend the extra time in making my own curry, it sounds fantastic!
So happy to hear you enjoyed this, Lana!
Your Thai Yellow Chicken with Potatoes looks absolutly yummy! However, I’m on WW so can you suggest other vegetables instead of potatoes to serve over rice? How about peas and/or something else?
Peas would be great with this, Hope!
Excellent curry paste. Tine consuming but we’ll worth it, make LOTS and freeze it! I’ve given up on way-too-spicy store bought pastes, too hot for kids. This one is very flavourful but mild. Don’t worry about the shrimp paste as it’s flavour gets masked by all the other ingredients. Fish sauce I avoid, preferring to use it as a table sauce as many don’t care for it. Last random thought…better to roast the ginger, galangal, shallots and garlic in the oven as they tend to scorch a bit in the direct heat if a pan.
I’m confused about step 3. It talks about using reserved coconut milk but you never said to reserve milk. Did I misunderstand?
Hi! I just read your EASY yellow curry recipe, then followed the link to read this one. What if someone in my family has a shellfish allergy? Is there a sub for the shrimp paste? ALSO, because I know you LOVE food: Do you ever make this recipe any more, or do you stick with the easy recipe? Curious which you like best. 🙂
I forgot to hit the reply notification, so I’m replying to my own comment to ask for email notification. Or you can just email me directly. LOL.