Thai Green Curry with Chicken (Gaeng Khiao Waan Gai)
Green curry paste fried in coconut cream until the oil breaks free, then simmered with chicken thighs, makrut lime leaves and crisp Thai eggplants and finished with a handful of Thai basil: savory and spicy first, only faintly sweet.
Gaeng khiao waan gai, green curry with chicken, is one of the best-known Thai curries in the world. Writing for Serious Eats, Derek Lucci reports that his mentor, the Thai food scholar Hanuman Aspler, found few if any mentions of green curry in historic Thai cookbooks and thinks it began in the kitchens of the Thai aristocracy around the 1920s, possibly under the influence of Indian-style curries; Wikipedia gives the reign of King Rama VI or Rama VII, 1908 to 1926.
The name is where people go wrong. Khiao means green and waan usually means sweet, so many cooks load it with sugar and blend in spinach to make it greener. Lucci, following Aspler, says khiao waan comes from a phrase for a pale, pastel green, and that the curry should be assertively savory and spicy with only a hint of sweetness; Wikipedia agrees that "sweet" refers to the color, not the taste. Lucci also says green paste is essentially red curry paste made with green chiles instead of dried red ones, which makes it the natural rival to the red curry Americans order from Thai takeout (see our Takeout-Style Red Curry Chicken recipe).
Why it works the kitchen science
Cracking the coconut milk
Cooking thick coconut milk with a little coconut oil until the water is gone breaks the emulsion, so the paste fries in coconut fat and its chile and lemongrass aromas bloom.
Savory before sweet
A generous splash of fish sauce and just a little palm sugar keep the curry in line with a red curry's profile, as Lucci argues the name intends.
Step by step
- Step 1
Whisk 1/2 cup of the coconut milk with the water and set aside. Pull the center rib out of the lime leaves; keep 8 whole and slice the other 2 into hair-thin strips for garnish.
- Step 2
Put the coconut oil and another 1/2 cup coconut milk in a 3-quart saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook, stirring, about 1 minute, until slightly thickened.
- Step 3
Add the curry paste, stir hard and scrape the sides. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring and scraping, about 1 minute, until the paste starts to spit. Lower the heat to medium and add the last 1/2 cup coconut milk 2 tbsp at a time over 5 to 6 minutes, until the paste darkens slightly and the oil separates.
- Step 4
Stir in the fish sauce and palm sugar for about 30 seconds, until the sugar dissolves. Salt the chicken lightly, add it with the 8 whole lime leaves, and stir to coat. Pour in the thinned coconut milk and bring to a simmer.
- Step 5
Simmer, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes, until the chicken is tender, the largest piece reads 165°F, and the sauce has thickened slightly.
- Step 6
Drain the eggplants, add them and simmer about 3 minutes, until just cooked but still a little crisp. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the basil until it wilts.
- Step 7
Garnish with the sliced lime leaves and serve with jasmine rice.
Thai Green Curry with Chicken (Gaeng Khiao Waan Gai)
Serves 4 · about 5 cups · 40 min total
Curry
- 1 1/2 cups full-fat coconut milk (look for 100% coconut milk), divided
- 1/2 cup water
- 10 fresh or frozen makrut lime leaves, divided
- 2 tbsp virgin coconut oil
- 1/2 cup (4 oz) green curry paste, homemade or store-bought
- 1 tbsp plus 2 tsp palm sugar
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 2-inch pieces
- Kosher salt
- 5 Thai eggplants (about 5 oz), stemmed, quartered and kept in a bowl of water
- 1 packed cup Thai basil leaves
To serve
- Cooked jasmine rice
Method
- Whisk 1/2 cup of the coconut milk with the water and set aside. Pull the center rib out of the lime leaves; keep 8 whole and slice the other 2 into hair-thin strips for garnish.
- Put the coconut oil and another 1/2 cup coconut milk in a 3-quart saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook, stirring, about 1 minute, until slightly thickened.
- Add the curry paste, stir hard and scrape the sides. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring and scraping, about 1 minute, until the paste starts to spit. Lower the heat to medium and add the last 1/2 cup coconut milk 2 tbsp at a time over 5 to 6 minutes, until the paste darkens slightly and the oil separates.
- Stir in the fish sauce and palm sugar for about 30 seconds, until the sugar dissolves. Salt the chicken lightly, add it with the 8 whole lime leaves, and stir to coat. Pour in the thinned coconut milk and bring to a simmer.
- Simmer, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes, until the chicken is tender, the largest piece reads 165°F, and the sauce has thickened slightly.
- Drain the eggplants, add them and simmer about 3 minutes, until just cooked but still a little crisp. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the basil until it wilts.
- Garnish with the sliced lime leaves and serve with jasmine rice.
Adapted from Derek Lucci, "Gaeng Khiao Waan Gai (Thai Green Curry with Chicken)", Serious Eats (June 2021; updated September 7, 2023), serves 4. The amounts, the coconut oil that helps the coconut milk "crack", the 1-minute fry until the paste spits, the 2-tablespoon additions over 5 to 6 minutes, the thinned coconut milk standing in for the lighter second pressing, the 10-minute simmer and the 3-minute eggplant are Lucci's. He makes his own paste and allows store-bought; we use store-bought. The 165°F check is ours. Serious Eats. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (3)
Tips
- Store-bought pastes vary in heat and salt. A Serious Eats reader used a full 1/2 cup of a common jarred brand and found it just right; taste a pinch of yours first.
- Japanese or globe eggplant can replace Thai eggplant by weight; cut it into 2-inch pieces (Lucci).
- Cut Thai eggplants turn brown quickly, which is why they wait in water.
- To make it a day ahead, leave out the basil and stir it in when you reheat; it keeps 3 days in the fridge (Lucci).
- Palm sugar is sold in Thai markets and some large supermarkets (Lucci); in a pinch we use light brown sugar.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Green curry should taste sweet. Disputed: the name is usually translated "sweet green", and many recipes add plenty of sugar; Lucci (citing Hanuman Aspler) and Wikipedia say the "sweet" describes the pale green color, and the curry should be savory and spicy first.
- Green curry is mild. Disputed: Wikipedia's curry article calls green the mildest of the colored Thai curries, but its green curry article says it tends to be more pungent than red. Heat depends on the paste.
- Green curry is an ancient Thai dish. Disputed: Aspler found few or no mentions in historic cookbooks and dates it to the 1920s (via Serious Eats); Wikipedia says it evolved between 1908 and 1926.
- Add spinach or cilantro leaves for color. Folklore: Lucci says it is a common move because of the name, not a traditional one.
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