Spicy Thai Coconut Curry with Shrimp

Our Thai curry has a rich and creamy broth of coconut milk, coupled with chili peppers and red curry paste.  Rice noodles and shrimp round out this spicy soup and turn it into a filling meal in a bowl.

I love soup.  Soup is probably the only thing that I like on the same level as my love for breads.  Plus, soup and bread are just a match made in heaven to me.  While I enjoy a flavorful broth (I mean, have you seen our gumbo?), I absolutely love a thicker soup.  Give me something like our chowder, or a giant trough bowl of tomato soup, and pair it with some form of crusty carbs, and this Tart will be the happiest person in the house.

This spicy Thai curry ticks all my boxes.  It’s amazingly full of flavor and a mild heat from the peppers that have been added to it.  There’s those shrimp and noodles to fill you up, and I made some crispy tofu to add a little more texture to things.  It’s made with coconut milk, which gives the curry a smooth, velvety broth, as well as cuts down the heat from the curry paste and the peppers.  

But what’s so great about soup? 

First of all, it’s ridiculously easy to make a good soup.  Whether you’re using a pre-made broth that you’ve grabbed off the shelf or making your own broth, all you really need to do is add some good ingredients and spices.  We once made a turkey soup, making our own stock from the remains of Thanksgiving dinner, and thickened with leftover Thanksgiving stuffing.  And it was good.

Second, you can make a lot of soup for just a little bit of effort and expense.  Right now, right at this very second, I’ve got a pho broth cooking in my slow cooker.  I dumped some veggies and spices into some beef broth and didn’t touch it for hours, and I’m going to have enough broth left to freeze for at least 2 more meals.  Things get even cheaper if you’re making your own stocks; the stock is a natural byproduct of the original meal, and can extend to several more meals.

But is it spicy?

This Thai curry definitely has some heat in it.  A coworker gifted me a plastic baggie of chili peppers, and there’s a Scotch bonnet pepper in there to boot.  However, that gloriously thick coconut milk really cuts down on the heat given off by the curry paste and the peppers.  You could also swap out these peppers entirely and replace them with milder varieties.

Speaking of veggies…

We didn’t go too incredibly crazy with the vegetables that we added to the curry because we had the shrimp.  We added some frozen peas, and the sliced chili peppers, and there’s onion in it as well.  There’s no reason you couldn’t leave out the shrimp and the chicken broth and make this a totally meat-free curry.  

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Thai Spicy Coconut Curry with Shrimp

Ingredients

• 2 14 oz cans coconut milk
• 1/2 lb shrimp cooked, deveined, shells removed
• 1/2 onion cut your way
• 2 tsps chili pepper chopped
• 1 scotch bonnet pepper seeds removed, & minced
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsps coconut oil
• 1/8 tsp dried ground ginger
• 2 tbsps red curry paste
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 3 tbsps fresh cilantro chopped
• 8 oz rice noodles cooked according to package
• 5 green onions chopped
• 1/2 cup peas frozen
• 1 cup chicken broth optional

Instructions

1. Cook rice noodles according to package directions, drain and rinse with cold water, then set aside.

2. Melt the coconut oil over medium heat, using a deep skillet or pot.  Add the peppers, onion, and garlic to the oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook until vegetables have softened up, about 5 minutes.  

3. Add the curry paste and ginger, stirring to completely cover the vegetables, and continue to cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  
   

4. Add the peas and coconut milk to the pot.  Increase the heat to bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down to low and simmer for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  

5. Taste the broth, add salt and pepper and season to taste.  If you find the broth to be too rich, add 1 cup of chicken broth.  Stir in the cilantro.  Add the shrimp and noodles and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Recipe Notes

As usual, we put the onions through the food processor because the Tart doesn’t do chunky veggies (sorry!), as well as the scotch bonnet pepper.  The chili peppers were left chopped.

The curry pictured here is shown with optional crispy fried tofu, which we added as an extra topping.  We’ll probably include that recipe in the future!

The Tart

The Tart likes to eat, cook, and bake things.  She eats to work out, and she works out to be able to eat.