What to do with a kilogram of red curry paste?
June 10, 2020 8:14 AM   Subscribe

I got frustrated with my local store not restocking the regular-sized curry paste jars for ages so I ordered a huge bucket of red curry paste (the Thai Kitchen one) online. Now that it's arrived I'm a little intimidated!

Of course I'll be making a bunch of coconut-based red curries, which I love, but I'll get tired of that long before I use up all the paste at a few tablespoons per meal. I also plan to experiment with adding it to some of my usual meals - I use sriracha, ground cayenne and hot sauce a lot already so maybe it could substitute for those? I'm guessing it'll also make a good lentil curry, but beyond that I'm out of ideas.

I've kept the small jars for literal years in the fridge before and I plan to freeze most of it and give away a bunch of the frozen portions whenever I can, so I'm not too worried about it going bad, more just getting bored of it.

So...recipe ideas for the paste that would taste very different from a typical thai red curry? Curries with a different flavour profile are fine. Or maybe things to add to a red curry to change things up? Recipes without coconut milk are especially helpful, but not strictly required.
posted by randomnity to Food & Drink (22 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Peanut sauce and satay.

I have added a bit of red curry paste to the filling for deviled eggs to much acclaim.
posted by joycehealy at 8:15 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Oops, I should have mentioned that we have a peanut allergy in the house so no peanuts unfortunately. No other food restrictions though.
posted by randomnity at 8:17 AM on June 10, 2020


I make corn fritters/pancakes with the chili paste.
posted by cobaltnine at 8:19 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


I love that paste.

Do you like fish? I sometimes make a thick tomato sauce (starts with onions and peppers sauteed with spices, then add crushed tomatoes to simmer) and use it to poach white fish. (It's basically the same method as for shakshuka, but using white fish fillets instead of eggs.) I bet seasoning a tomato sauce like that with the curry paste would be delicious and different. (You just serve the fillets in the sauce; ideally you've used a nice pan to cook it all and can just bring it to the table. An enameled pan is good.)

A similar preparation is "green shakshuka" which is basically the same thing, but with chopped up spinach and kale instead of tomato; maybe some cream because life is short; and use a green pepper instead of red. I'm not sure if the red curry paste would make the color too muddy, but I bet the taste would be great. Again you could use it for poaching either white fish fillets; or eggs.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:34 AM on June 10, 2020


more ideas:

* use it to season meatballs
* use it to season easy pureed soups. Cauliflower would be great, or butternut squash + green apple.
* chicken salad
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:39 AM on June 10, 2020


Mix some into plain hummus
posted by Bohemian Sailor at 8:44 AM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


It's a sometimes food but these corn fritters are SO good.
SheSimmers Thai corn fritters
posted by Lady Li at 8:50 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


Satay sauce! It's good on pretty much everything.

1 can coconut milk
6 tbsp curry paste
2/3 cup peanut butter
7 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce

Bring the coconut milk to a gentle boil o er medium heat and add the paste, cook 3 minutes while stirring. Add the PB and sugar and stir for 2 more minutes. Remove from the heat and add the fish sauce.

I like making a quick pickle to go with, boil equal amounts of white vinegar and sugar till clear and submerge thin sliced cucumber and red onion. Chill overnight. You can reuse the liquid for more pickles!

If you want my tandoori chicken recipe, PM me.
posted by ananci at 9:30 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


if you saute some shrimp in that it will be quiet tasty
posted by supermedusa at 9:47 AM on June 10, 2020


What about dressing up potato (or sweet potato) wedges in it and roasting them? Whisk some paste into a scant bit of water and/or some neutral oil, then maybe add a little bit of sweetness using some white sugar, palm sugar, or brown sugar. Sweet and spicy roasted potatoes!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:06 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


I love Khao Soi or its Malaysian cousin Curry Mee.

If you want to explore outside the usual Thai dishes, there's other Malaysian uses or it or Laotian like Khao Poon.

It's also good tossed in with rice as it cooks, or I've gone off-script with it and added it to quinoa.
posted by Candleman at 10:07 AM on June 10, 2020




5 ways to use Thai curry paste (besides making a curry) -- a video from the ever-excellent Hot Thai Kitchen addressing this very question.

It's so versatile! (Full disclosure, I got the idea for most of these things below from that video above).

I find it helps if you think about not so much as "curry paste" but "pre-made/pre-assembled full herb-and-spice flavoring mix" that, with just a little bit of seasoning and/or sweetness and/or acid makes a good meal. It's obviously a strong punchy flavor so works well with things like carbs or meat where you really want to get a zing.

Some ideas:

- Mix in with ground meat or tofu crumbles for things like a quick stir-fry, meatloaf or meatballs
- Use in general as a good base for a stir-fry - I particularly like stir-frying chicken or shrimp with some curry paste
- Use as a flavoring base for fried rice, quinoa
- Make a sort of sauce for pasta or noodles
- Mix with eggs for an omelette or a scramble
- Mix and concentrate with some coconut milk to make a vegetable dip
posted by andrewesque at 10:46 AM on June 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


I have used red curry paste, with good results, to substitute for the chili-garlic paste in cold sesame noodles. That recipe calls for peanut butter & peanut oil — but the author suggests that cashew nut butter would work well as a substitute, and I always just use canola oil anyway. I might even try tahini as a sub for peanut butter.
posted by snowmentality at 11:24 AM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


Share it with your friends.
posted by the Real Dan at 11:40 AM on June 10, 2020


Response by poster: I might even try tahini as a sub for peanut butter.

Ahh this never occurred to me. I actually have a huge jar of tahini kicking around as well (I have to stop doing this to myself...) so I'm definitely going to try subbing it. I guess peanut recipes are back on the menu if they would work with tahini instead!
posted by randomnity at 12:23 PM on June 10, 2020


If you want a different flavour profile, I stir-fry curry paste with minced pork and aubergine, adding fresh basil leaves and garlic for extra flavour. Can't seem to find a recipe that matches what I usually do, but it's really easy...
posted by moiraine at 1:33 PM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


I have made satay-style sauce with sunbutter, so I can't imagine tahini would be much different.

I make massive batches of beef meatballs to freeze raw and cook a la minute, basically by this recipe but I also do variations on seasonings. Curry paste is an excellent addition (I add a couple teaspoons to 2lbs meat, and then keep adding until I like the way it smells, but you can also microwave or fry off a small bit of meat to taste it), and curry meatballs are extremely handy for zhuzhing up ramen, cold noodles or spiralized cucumber, or just on rice. I freeze them on a sheet pan and then decant to a freezer bag, so it's easy to pop as many as you need into the oven, toaster oven, or air fryer.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:33 PM on June 10, 2020


I grew up in Minnesota where fried cream cheese wontons are on the menu at every Asian restaurant. If you mix red curry paste with the cream cheese they are even better! You can also add some shredded coconut inside the wonton. I used store-bought wonton wraps, wrapped up the filling, and deep-fried them, then served them with sweet and sour sauce.
posted by mai at 1:49 PM on June 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


Quonsmas is coming.
posted by theora55 at 2:59 PM on June 10, 2020


Thai pumpkin soup is awesome.
posted by Jubey at 4:10 PM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


I've successfully used thai curry paste as a seasoning in risotto
posted by kbuxton at 12:29 AM on June 13, 2020


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