Every curry paste recipe tells you what goes into the paste, and then leaves you guessing how much of it goes in the pot. I went looking for one that said how much paste for how much meat, and I could not find one.
The builder below works from my own Thai curries: the red paste from my Thai fish and prawn curry, my Thai yellow chicken curry and my chicken massaman. Pick a paste, tell it what is going in the pot, and it works out the paste and how much of it to use.
It also tells you what each ingredient is doing, which is the part a recipe has no room for. Why green paste uses fresh chillies and red uses dried. Why massaman takes nearly twice as much paste as the others. And what to do when you cannot find galangal, which is not reaching for ginger.
Build Your Curry Paste, Step by Step
Which paste are you making?
All five are the same shape underneath. One thing is switched on or the chilli is changed, and that is the whole difference between them.
Cooking with it today, or making a jar?
It changes what the builder tells you. One curry gets a dose worked out against what you are cooking; a jar gets a yield and how many curries it is worth.
How many batches?
What is going in the curry?
This is the one question that decides how much paste to use, and almost nobody answers it. Recipes say "two tablespoons" whatever is in the pan.
How much of it?
How hot?
Only the chillies move. Everything else in the paste stays where the card has it, so the heat changes without the flavour changing with it.
Dried or fresh chillies?
What makes this one what it is
The switch that separates this paste from the red one, and the only place it is worth a decision.
Turmeric: fresh or ground?
The warm spices: whole or ready-ground?
How much peanut?
Have you got galangal?
Ginger is not offered here and never will be. It is a different ingredient, and a paste made with ginger is a ginger paste. If you have not got galangal the builder adjusts the rest of the recipe instead.
Shrimp paste?
It is the salt and the savoury depth rather than a seafood flavour, so it matters more than its quantity suggests. There is a vegan answer and an honest one.
Mortar or processor?
The ingredients are identical either way. What changes is the method, the time and how the paste comes out.
Your curry paste
The other recipe builders
What the builder works out for you
- A red, green, yellow, massaman or panang paste, all built on one shared base with the one or two things that make each paste what it is.
- How much paste goes into your curry, worked out from what you are cooking and how much of it there is.
- Four levels of heat, from mild to very hot, with only the chillies changing.
- A batch for the freezer, up to four times the recipe.
- A version without galangal that puts back what it can, and a vegan version with miso or with nothing in place of the shrimp paste.
- The method for a pestle and mortar or a food processor, with the reasoning attached to each step.
- The equipment it takes, and how to keep what you do not use.
How much paste actually goes in a curry
This is the question I could not find answered anywhere, so I went back to my own recipe cards. Measured against the liquid in the pot, they are all over the place, more than three times apart. Measured against the meat or fish, my red and yellow curries land close together: a little over half a tablespoon of paste for every 100 g. That is the figure the builder uses.
Massaman is the exception. My card uses nearly twice as much, and the warm spices are the reason it can take it, which is what I found when I compared eleven massaman pastes. So the builder doses it on its own.
Why there is no ginger option
Galangal is a relative of ginger, and that is where the likeness stops. It is more austere, with a pine, clove and eucalyptus smell and none of ginger’s lemony side. Swap one for the other and you have made a different paste, so the builder never offers it.
If you cannot get galangal, tell it so. It leaves the galangal out and makes up what it can with a little more coriander seed, some cardamom, a clove and a spoon of turmeric. Galangal is also a starchy root, so it thickens the sauce a little as it simmers, and the turmeric, another starchy root, puts some of that body back.
It is a good paste, but it is not the same paste. Green is the one it hurts most, because a green paste is short and fresh with nowhere for a missing note to hide. If you are going to buy a jar for one colour, make it that one.
FAQ for the Thai Curry Paste Builder
Which paste should I make?
Red is the one to start with. It is the base the other four are built on, and each of the others is that same paste with one thing changed. Green swaps the dried red chillies for fresh green ones, yellow adds turmeric and is the mildest, massaman adds the warm spices, and panang adds peanuts. If you are not sure, the first step of the builder puts all five side by side.
Pestle and mortar or food processor?
Either works. A pestle and mortar is slower and gives the better paste, because it crushes the lemongrass and the aromatics rather than chopping them. A food processor is quick, but it needs a splash of liquid to get going, so the paste comes out looser. The builder rewrites the method for whichever you pick.
Can I make it without shrimp paste?
Yes. White miso is the nearest vegan stand-in for the salt and the savoury depth. You can also leave it out altogether, which costs you that savoury backbone, so add a little more salt and a squeeze of lime to the pot instead. Panang is the one to think twice about, because shrimp paste is in every published panang paste I read.
How hot will it be?
Medium is the way my recipe makes it, with 10 g of chillies. Mild halves that, and hot and very hot take it to 18 g and 30 g. Nothing else in the paste moves, so you change the heat without changing the rest. If you are using fresh chillies and want it gentler still, scrape out the white pith: that is where the heat is made.
How long does homemade curry paste keep?
About a week in the fridge in a closed jar, pressed down flat with a thin layer of oil over the top. For longer, spoon it into an ice cube tray a tablespoon at a time, freeze it, then bag the cubes and drop them into the pan straight from frozen.
Can I make a big batch?
Up to four batches at once, and it is simply the recipe multiplied. One batch makes about three tablespoons. A massaman jar goes less far than a red one of the same size, because massaman takes so much more paste.