Thai Red Tofu Curry is one of the most popular dishes in Thailand. Rich, creamy, spicy, and absolutely delicious, our Vegan version of the traditional Red Curry is made with homemade paste and served with veggies and tofu.
If you have been following us for a bit now, you may know how much we enjoy cooking and eating Thai food. We always try to make them as authentic as possible using plant-based ingredients that are available in most countries. Ingredients such as shrimp paste or fish sauce are very common in Thai recipes, but we have found plant-based substitutions for these ingredients that will make your recipes just as yummy.
Our Vegan Red Curry is packed full of umami flavors. Making the curry paste from scratch makes a huge difference when it comes to Thai curries. First time cooking Asian curry from scratch? Don't worry; we have all the tips and tricks you need to succeed on your first try. Also, we'll give you some good brands to buy already-made curry paste if you prefer to skip this step.
We like making the paste from scratch, so we can adjust the spicy level, saltiness, and sweetness of the curry paste, but we've two little kids, so not every time we find the time to make the paste from scratch. Let me tell you a little secret: you can also make a delicious curry using store-bought paste.
About our homemade Red Curry Paste
Red Curry is one of the most popular Thai Curries. This Thai dish gets its name from the color of the curry paste, which is made with red chillis, aromatics such as lemongrass, shallots, kaffir lime leaves and galangal, spices, and other umami-packed ingredients such as garlic or prawn paste. For our Vegan Red Curry paste, we use miso paste instead of shrimp paste.
This is one of the recipes we mastered during our Thai cooking course in Chiang Mai. Before this, we always struggled with the consistency of the curry paste, as we were adding too much liquid, but after the cooking class, we started preparing our own curry paste with much more confidence and fantastic results!
Our Thai Red Curry with Tofu is made with coconut milk and served with a variety of vegetables and protein. We use tofu as the main protein and vegetables, such as zucchini, red pepper, and carrots.
Red Curry is normally milder than Green Curry and spicier than Yellow curry. You can use red curry paste to make other dishes such as Khao Soi, Tom Kha, or this delicious Butternut Squash Curry.
How to make Red Curry Paste
Making the paste from scratch takes a bit longer, but if you have that extra time and ingredients, we encourage you to try. The flavors you get from it are perfectly balanced and simply delicious. Our curry paste is vegan and gluten-free.
Ingredients
Dried bird-eye chillies. You can use larger chilies as well. This is the main ingredient to give the curry paste a red color. In order to be able to use more chilies without the paste being too spicy, the chilies will need to be deseeded. Using gloves, cut the chilies down the side with scissors, remove the seeds, and leave them soaking in water for around 10 minutes. We normally add around 10-15 bird-eyes chillies. The curry comes out spicy but not super spicy. If you prefer milder curries, get larger chilies, as they will normally be less spicy.
Aromatics. To make our red curry paste, we use a few aromatics, which include lemongrass stalks, shallots, galangal, garlic, and coriander stems. The bottom part of the lemongrass stalks you need contains most of the flavor. If you cannot find galangal, feel free to use fresh ginger instead. We normally find frozen galangal in our local Asian supermarket. Traditionally, coriander root is used instead of the stems, but we are unable to get them in Spain.
Miso paste. We know! Miso paste is Japanese, so why are we using it in Thai curry? Well, we tried different ingredients to substitute the prawn paste added to make curry pastes. After trying different things, we found out that miso adds the perfect saltiness and flavor that we were looking for!
Spices. Our spice blend for the red curry paste contains white and black pepper, cumin powder, and coriander powder. Whole spices contain a stronger flavor. If you buy them already crushed or powdered like us, the taste of your curry paste will still be totally yummy.
Sea salt. If you want to keep your paste for a few days or a week in the fridge, it will stay good for longer if you add salt or sea salt.
Step-by-step Method
To make the vegan curry paste, you can use a food processor (make sure you are making a big enough batch otherwise it won't work), a mortar and pestle, or a hand blender.
We use the small food processor of our hand blender, you can find it on amazon. It works amazingly when making curry paste, pesto, or other dips and sauces.
- Add the white and green ingredients into the food processor or blender: Shallots roughly chopped, lemongrass finely sliced (just the thicker part), garlic cloves, galangal roughly chopped, lime zest, and coriander stems. Blend all these ingredients until you have a consistency that already looks like a paste. Keep pushing the ingredients down with a spatula and blending further if needed.
- Add the chilies and blend until you have a red paste. Make sure the chilies are well blended. This may take a couple of minutes.
- Add the spices, sea salt, and miso paste. Blend one last time until all the ingredients are perfectly blended and you have the right consistency.
- Your paste will be ready to make the curry or stored at this point. It can be frozen, and it will last for months in the freezer, or you can keep it in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.
If you want to learn how to make your curry pastes with pestle and mortar, we recommend checking how Hot Thai Kitchen makes them!
How to make Thai Red Curry with Tofu
Ingredients
Red curry paste. If you are making your paste from scratch, follow the steps above. Otherwise, simply get your vegan store-bought paste ready.
Tofu. We like pan-frying the tofu before, but you can add the tofu to the curry uncooked and let it cook with the rest of the ingredients. For this recipe, we use firm or extra firm tofu.
Coconut milk. You can find coconut milk in most grocery stores. We recommend using a can of full-fat coconut milk. Creamy coconut milk is tastier, and if you are not having Thai curry every day or have been advised to avoid coconut milk, it should be fine to eat regular coconut milk.
Vegetables. For this curry, we use red bell pepper, carrots, and zucchini. Other vegetables that we like adding to this meal are green beans, broccoli, sweet potato, baby corn, green or yellow bell peppers, snow peas, or eggplant.
Kaffir lime leaves. We add the lime leaves while cooking the curry instead of blending them with the rest of the paste ingredients. They can be blended as well, but we prefer them whole inside the curry. If you don't have kaffir lime leaves, you can add some lime juice before serving or lime zest to the curry paste.
Water or vegetable broth. We use water to make this recipe as the curry paste is already packed with flavor, but you can use vegetable broth or stock if you'd like.
Soy sauce. Use tamari for a gluten-free red curry.
Sweetener. This ingredient is totally optional. You can add some sugar (brown sugar, coconut sugar, white sugar, or palm sugar), maple syrup, date syrup, or any other sweetener of your choice.
Fresh coriander to garnish before serving.
Step-by-Step Method
- Heat some coconut oil in a pan over medium heat and add the curry paste. Leave it cooking for 1-2 minutes.
- Add two tablespoons of coconut milk. Keep cooking until it starts bubbling, and the oil separates from the paste.
- Add the rest of the coconut milk, water or stock, soy sauce or tamari (gluten-free), brown sugar, and lime leaves.
- Add the cut veggies, and if you are not pan-frying the tofu, you can add it at this point as well and cut it into cubes. Bring the curry to a simmer and cook for about 15-20 minutes.
Pan-fry the tofu. To prepare the tofu, cut it into cubes or triangles. Heat some vegetable oil in a non-stick pan and add the tofu cubes. Pan-fry for a couple of minutes while you keep turning the pieces to cook evenly on all sides. When the tofu starts to turn golden brown, add some soy sauce and, optionally, sriracha. Give the tofu a good stir, cook for a few more minutes, and set aside.
You can add the tofu right before serving the curry or a few minutes before you turn the heat off.
Thai Red Curry with Tofu
Ingredients
Red Curry Paste Ingredients
- 10-15 Bird's eye chillis
- 1 tablespoon coriander stems
- 2 lemongrass stalks
- 3 garlic cloves finely chopped or crushed
- 2 shallots finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon galagal
- 1 teaspoon miso paste
- 1 teaspoon white peppercorn
- 1 teaspoon cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
Thai Red Curry Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 2 ½ tablespoon red curry paste
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 200 ml water or stock
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar optional
- 4-5 kaffir lime leaves
- Fresh chopped vegetables of your choice. We use zucchini, carrots and red pepper
- 9 oz firm tofu
Instructions
Thai Red Curry Paste - Skip if you have store-bought paste
- Using gloves, cut the chillies down the side with scissors, remove the seeds, finely slice them and leave them soaking while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.10-15 Bird's eye chillis
- Add into the food processor or blender the white and green ingredients: Shallots roughly chopped, lemongrass finely sliced (just the thicker part), garlic cloves, galangal roughly chopped, and coriander stems. Blend all these ingredients until you have a consistency that already looks like a paste. Keep pushing the ingredients down with a spatula and blending further if needed.2 lemongrass stalks, 3 garlic cloves finely chopped or crushed, 2 shallots finely chopped, 1 tablespoon galagal, 1 tablespoon coriander stems
- Add the chillies and blend until you have a red paste. Make sure the chillies are well blended. This may take a couple of minutes.10-15 Bird's eye chillis
- Add the spices, sea salt and miso paste. Blend one last time until all the ingredients are perfectly blended and you have the right consistency.1 teaspoon miso paste, 1 teaspoon white peppercorn, 1 teaspoon cumin powder, 1 teaspoon coriander powder, ½ teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon salt
- The paste will be ready to use or to keep in the fridge for later use. You can as well freeze it at this point.
Thai Red Curry with Tofu
- Heat some coconut oil in a pan and add the curry paste. Leave it cooking for 1-2 minutes and then add 2 tablespoons of coconut milk. Keep cooking until it starts bubbling and the oil separated from the paste.1 tablespoon coconut oil, 2 ½ tablespoon red curry paste, 400 ml coconut milk
- Add the rest of the coconut milk, water or stock, soy sauce or tamari (gluten-free), brown sugar, lime leaves and fresh veggies of your choice. For this recipe we use carrots, bell red pepper and zucchini.200 ml water, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon brown sugar, 4-5 kaffir lime leaves, Fresh chopped vegetables of your choice.
- To prepare the tofu, cut it into cubes or triangles. We normally pan fry the tofu separately adding some soy sauce to give the tofu some extra flavour but if you want to save time you can cook it directly with the rest of the vegetables inside the curry too.9 oz firm tofu
- Cook until the vegetables are done. We like to cook them partially, so they still have a bit of a crunch.
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Nutrition
Serving Suggestions
Thai Red Curry with Tofu is normally served with jasmine rice, but you can also serve it with brown rice or noodles. If you add more coconut milk, water, or homemade broth, it can be served as a coconut soup or noodle soup if you add rice noodles. We especially love having leftover curry served as a coconut soup by adding some extra vegetable stock or coconut milk.
Before serving, add some fresh chopped cilantro or Thai basil, chopped green onions or crispy onions, and chili flakes if you want to add some more heat.
You could serve some Tofu Satay, Vegan Spring Rolls, or summer rolls as an appetizer to have a complete and amazing meal.
Store and Reheat
If you have leftovers, don't worry. Thai curries are one of these meals that taste better on the second day, so you can enjoy this dish two days in a row.
You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container for 3-4 days in the fridge.
To reheat the curry, you can use a pot or a microwave.
Leftover Thai red curry paste
When we prepare the Thai red curry paste, we always try to make enough to have some leftovers. A few days later, we make a coconut noodle soup or a Tom Kha Soup using the same paste. You can also make a delicious Garden Vegetable Curry using red curry paste.
You can also freeze the curry paste for another day to make a lovely curry in no time.
FAQ and Tips
Depends. Brands like Aroy-D are vegan, but some other brands contain prawn paste. The only way to make sure is by reading the list of ingredients before buying it.
You should be able to find a vegan option in a local Asian supermarket, in some large supermarkets, or online.
Red Curry is normally spicy when ordered at restaurants. It is milder than Green Curry and spicier than Yellow Curry. If you are making your paste from scratch, you can add more chilis or reduce the number of chilis to make the paste spicier or milder. When cooking with pre-made curry paste, you can add more or less paste depending on how spicy you like your curries.
If you have high cholesterol or want to avoid coconut milk altogether, you can use cashew cream, soy cream, or oat cream. We recommend using cashew cream, as texture and flavor are the most similar to coconut milk.
Colleen says
We love Thai food in our house and we also have travelled to Thailand. This recipe looks really authentic, and I'm excited to try it!
Laura says
Thank you Colleen 🙂 We loved Thailand!
Amanda says
This red curry is so delicious! Making your own curry paste makes all the difference and is well-worth the effort.
Laura says
It totally does! Thank you Amanda
Sean says
It's been much too long since I made my own red curry paste, so I'm delighted to see this recipe. Great tip about the coriander/cilantro stems - it's so hard to find the roots, and these work great. Now I just need to build up my kids' tolerance to spice so I can make this more often!
Laura says
They work really good as they deliver the flavour without turning the paste green. Good Luck! 🙂
Sally says
Awesome simple recipe that tastes so good. Thank you💛
Laura says
Thank you Sally 🙂
Shelley says
Oh my goodness! I'm thrilled to happen across this red curry recipe! It looks so much like one that I ADORE from our beloved local Thai restaurant! How fun to be able to try making this recipe at home, especially now that we're cooking even more at home these days. THANK YOU for sharing this - I'm so happy!
Laura says
Thank you Shelley! It tastes delicious so I hope you like it!!
Candice says
I will be making this recipe over and over again. Love this curry. Love that it's with tofu. And LOVE all the flavors in here. Thank you for the recipe!
Kushigalu says
Love Thai food and Thai red curry is one of my favorite. So flavorful. I will soon try your version
Anna says
I'm a huge fan of Thai cuisine and flavours, and this curry looks spot on! I love that it's vegan too, definitely cooking this over the weekend!
Veronika says
Love good curry! The best part is that you are making homemade red curry, nothing can beat that! Need to make this recipe ASAP!
Eva says
I usually go for store-bought curry paste, but I am so glad I stumbled upon your post as I was happy to discover that it's not difficult at all to make from scratch!
Sue says
I tried this recipe today,it turned out amazing,will definitely keeper!
Laura says
Thank you Sue! Glad to read this 🙂
Kerri Burton says
It looks so good ?
Karen says
I’m keen to try this out as I love red curry. Just wondering why soy sauce is used rather than fish sauce which I would’ve expected?
Laura says
Hi Karen, we are a vegetarian family, that's why we use soy sauce. We make sometimes our own Vegan Fish Sauce too, have a look! https://sixhungryfeet.com/vegan-fish-sauce/
James R. says
I'm still in shock.
I tried your recipe last night and it's probably the best meal that I've ever prepared.
It was absolutely delicious!
Thank you much.
Laura says
Thank you for your comment James 🙂 We are really happy that you loved the recipe!
MADGE says
calls for waaaay too much water or stock to be added. Sadly I am standing around waiting for it to boil off. Would be good if they specified that adding liquid is for the soup version.
Laura says
Hello Madge, the amount of water or stock of this recipe is the one we use to make the red curry, not the soup version. We add 250 ml of water or stock plus the coconut milk. Using this amount you will have a brothy curry, that you can serve with some rice on the side. I'm sorry if it was too much for your taste, try adding half of the amount of water next time, thanks for the comment.
Denise says
My curry paste did not turn out a bright red which led to the over all look to be more white than red. I think other than that it taste fine. Thank you for the recipe.
Laura says
Hi Denise, thank you for your review. The color will depend on the type of chilis you use and the amount you add to the paste. I am happy that you still enjoyed the recipe.