Vegan Thai Yellow Curry

It took as quite a long time after making the Thai Red Curry and Thai Green Curry recipes to share our Thai Yellow Curry with tofu, but here it is. This vegan yellow curry is made with homemade paste, coconut milk, and yummy veggies and served with chopped coriander and lime. Can you think of a better recipe to make today?

What is Thai Yellow Curry?

Thai Yellow Curry is one of the most popular Thai Curries. This Thai dish gets its name from the colour of the curry paste which is made with curry powder, turmeric, 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 Thai Yellow Curry paste, we use miso paste instead of shrimp paste.

Our Vegan Thai Yellow 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 carrots, bell pepper, bamboo shoots and green beans. This curry is commonly served with jasmine rice or noodles.

Thai Yellow Curry is normally milder than Green Curry and Red Curry. You can use yellow curry paste to make other dishes such as this Butternut Squash curry, or this Khao Soi.

How to make the best Veg Thai curries at home

We only used to eat Thai curries when eating out, until we travelled around Asia for a good few months and realized how easy it was to cook Asian food at home when you have the right ingredients available.

We have a few tips or tricks when it comes to cooking Thai curries at home:

• Make the curry paste from scratch. We know for a fact that you can get a Thai curry using store-bought paste, we have been there, but homemade paste, that’s another level. You can find here as well our recipe for homemade Red Curry Paste.
• Use a good amount of garlic and ginger, both are essential ingredients in Asian cooking.
• Choose the right ingredients. If you have a nearby Asian store, go there to buy a good quality soy sauce, good quality spices, chillies, ginger, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and any other ingredients that are commonly used. You can freeze the kaffir lime leaves, galangal, chillies and lemongrass to have for the next time you want to cook another curry.
• Use good quality coconut milk. When buying coconut milk always check the % of coconut extract that the can contains. The higher the better. If you are hesitating about which brand to buy, go directly for the can that contains a higher amount of coconut extract.
• Cook your curries in a non-stick pot or pan. We use our cast iron pan or pot when preparing curries as they are perfect for slow cooking.

Our Thai Yellow Curry is:

• Vegan
• Thai-inspired dish
• Gluten-free
• Mildly spicy
• Made from scratch (including the paste)
• Umami-packed

How to make Vegan Yellow Curry Paste from scratch

Making the paste from scratch does take a bit longer but with every minute invested in making this, it's definitely worth it. We love Thai food and when we make it at home, it has to be perfect. If you want to use store-bought paste, we recommend checking that the brand you are using is vegan as some may contain prawn paste or fish sauce. This brand is vegan and quite good.

Ingredients

Aromatics. To make a flavourful and delicious yellow curry paste we use a few aromatics which include lemongrass, shallots (or red onion), galangal, fresh ginger, lime leaves, and garlic. The part of the lemongrass stalks you need is the bottom part which contains most of the flavour. If you cannot find galangal, feel free to just use ginger instead. We normally find frozen galangal and lime leaves in our local Asian supermarket. We cannot find these ingredients fresh in Spain, so maybe you will need to look for them frozen as well, depending on where you are.

Fresh bird-eye chillies. We like adding a little spice to our curry by adding three or four fresh chillies.

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 that goes in curry paste. After different tries, we found out that miso adds the perfect saltiness and flavour that we were looking for. We use white miso paste for our yellow curry paste.

Spices. Our spice blend for this vegan yellow curry paste contains white pepper, cumin powder or cumin seeds, coriander powder or coriander seeds, turmeric and curry powder. Whole spices contain a stronger flavour. If you buy them already crushed or powdered like us, the taste of your curry paste will still be totally yummy. If you can easily find fresh turmeric, you better use fresh turmeric instead.
For cumin and coriander seeds, we recommend you toast them before adding them in the blender.

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 veg yellow 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, pestos, or other dips and sauces.

Finely chop the galangal, lemongrass, ginger, garlic, shallots and fresh chillies. Remove the stalk from the lime leaves.

1. Add all the ingredients into a food processor: aromatics, spices, miso paste, fresh chillies, and salt.
2. Blend until you have a smooth paste. You may need to blend for a couple of minutes depending on the machine you are using.

How to make Vegan Thai Yellow Curry

Ingredients

Veg Yellow Curry is made with a few ingredients that you should be able to find easily.

Yellow curry paste. You can make your own curry paste following the instructions in the recipe card, or you can get a store-bought paste. Mae Ploy or Aroy-D are vegan-friendly.

Tofu. We use firm tofu as our main protein. We like pan-frying the tofu before but you can add the tofu into the curry raw and let it cook with the rest of the ingredients.

Coconut Milk. Get good quality coconut milk or coconut cream as they contain a higher amount of coconut milk and less water. We use full-fat coconut milk for this recipe. You can use light coconut milk, but it won't be as creamy.

Vegetables. So, what vegetables go well in a Yellow Curry? Short answer, most of them! For this recipe, we used green beans, carrots, bamboo shoots and bell peppers. We like adding to our curry a variety of colours, textures and tastes. Other vegetables that you may want to try adding are broccoli, zucchini, baby corn, mushrooms, snap peas, Thai basil, shallots, potatoes, sweet potatoes or peas.

Water or vegetable broth. You can use water to make this recipe as the curry paste is already packed with flavour but adding vegetable broth or vegetable stock will make the dish tastier.

Tamari or soy sauce. Our Vegetarian Yellow Curry is gluten-free so we use tamari.

Sugar (optional). Adding a little bit of sweetener such as brown sugar or palm sugar, while cooking the yellow curry will bring out the best flavours.

Fresh coriander and lime wedges to add to your curry before serving.

Step-by-Step Method

Follow these easy steps to make the best Veg Yellow Curry recipe in just 30 minutes.

1. Heat some coconut oil or olive oil in a large pot to medium heat. Add the Thai yellow curry paste with a little bit of coconut milk (the creamier part). Stir and cook for 4-5 minutes.
2. Add the rest of the coconut milk, vegetable broth, or water, stir well and bring to a simmer. Add your selection of veggies roughly chopped or sliced. Leave simmering for about 20 minutes.
3. While the curry is cooking, you can fry the tofu. Remove the excess water with a paper towel and cut the tofu block into cubes. Pan-fry the cubes using a medium-sized frying pan. Keep turning the tofu so it cooks evenly on all sides.
4. Once the veggies are cooked (they should still have a bit of a crunch and not be really soft), add the pan-fried tofu, soy sauce, and sugar. Stir, taste, and adjust with salt if needed.
   
   Serve with some chopped cilantro and lime. Optionally you can add some chilli flakes or sriracha.

Serving Suggestions

Thai curries are served as a main dish as they are nutritionally complete and overall quite filling.

Thai Yellow Curry is normally served with jasmine rice or jasmine brown rice. If you add more coconut milk, water, or homemade broth, it can be served as a coconut soup as well as rice noodles.

Adding some freshly chopped cilantro and some squeezed lime juice before serving, makes the dish absolutely perfect. As well, if you are a spicy food lover, add some sriracha or chilli flakes.

Thai curries are one of these meals that taste better the second day so if you have leftovers, simply keep them in an airtight container and you can enjoy this dish two days in a row!

If you have curry paste left over, you could use ice cube trays to freeze it.

When we prepare yellow curry paste, red curry paste or green curry paste, we make traditional Thai curry and a few days later we make a coconut noodle soup or a Tom Kha Soup using the same paste.

FAQ and Tips

• Are store-bought curry pastes vegan? Depends. Pastes like Aroy-D or Mae Ploy brand 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.
• Where can I find vegan Yellow Curry paste? You should be able to find a vegan option in a local Asian supermarket or online. Mae Ploy and Aroy-D are both vegan curry pastes.
• Is Yellow Curry spicy? Yellow curry is milder than red or green 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 make our paste and you don't add chilis, your yellow curry will be mild and family-friendly.
• What is the difference between Yellow, Red and Green Thai curries? All three curries are made with the same basic ingredients such as shallots, galangal, garlic, lemongrass and lime leaves. Red curry is made with red chillies while the green curry is made with green chillies. Thai Yellow curry contains curry powder and a smaller amount of red or yellow chillies.
• You can keep the leftovers in an air-tight container for 3-4 days.
• If you want to prepare this dish ahead of time, you can leave the curry paste cooked and frozen. It will save you time when you want to prepare the meal!

If you tried our recipe, please leave a comment or tag us on Instagram @Sixhungryfeet. We are always happy to see your creations!

Other Vegan Thai Curries:

Green Curry with Tofu
Red Curry with Tofu
Vegan Khao Soi
Thai-style Peanut Curry
Vegan Massaman Curry