This chicken curry recipe has a rich coconut curry sauce with aromatic spices. Serve it over rice for a quick weeknight meal.
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Recipe Highlights For Chicken Curry
- Flavor: This curry chicken recipe is flavor-packed. The creamy sauce has a delicious curry flavor and is slightly sweeter than coconut milk.
- Skill level: So simple! Just cook the chicken and veggies, then simmer in the sauce.
- Budget tip: Frozen peppers and onions will stretch this recipe out even more.
Ingredient Tips For Chicken Curry
- Chicken: Use boneless chicken breasts or boneless, skinless chicken thighs in this recipe.
- Coconut milk: Use full fat coconut milk (ensure it’s not coconut cream).
- Curry: Yellow curry powder adds a distinctive color and a warm, earthy flavor, while red curry paste is a bit more complex and contains aromatics like lemongrass and lime. You can use just one or the other (add a bit extra), but I recommend both if possible.
- Fish sauce: Fish sauce adds a savory umami. If you don’t have fish sauce, you can replace it with some soy sauce.
Variations
- Spice up the dish with red chili flakes, diced Thai chiles, or sambal.
- Stir in a little plain yogurt for extra tang and creaminess.
- Add some chopped tomatoes.
- Garnish with extras like sliced green onion or a little squeeze from a wedge of lime to marry the flavors.
Serving Suggestions
Chicken curry is delicious served over plain white rice, basmati rice, or coconut rice. It’s also delish over zucchini noodles.
Serve with a side of steamed broccoli, sauteed green beans, or some bok choy.
Storing Curry Chicken
- Separate leftover chicken curry from rice (if using) and store it in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Before reheating, add a little coconut milk, chicken stock, or water to loosen the sauce.
- Freeze portions in zippered bags (without the rice) for up to 6 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before reheating.
More Curried Favorites
Did your family love this Chicken Curry recipe? Leave a rating and a comment below!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts diced into bite-size pieces
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 small yellow onion or white onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 2 tablespoons yellow curry powder
- 1 tablespoon Thai red curry paste
- 15 ounces coconut milk canned, full fat
- ½ cup chicken stock or water, optional
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- salt to taste
- 1 handful cilantro roughly chopped
- 4 cups cooked white rice for serving
Instructions
- Heat oil in a large pot or deep skillet over medium-low heat. Add onions and minced garlic. Cook until onions are fragrant and softened.
- Add chicken to the pot and cook for 2-3 minutes, allowing it to brown slightly. Stir in the curry powder and paste, and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes.
- Pour in coconut milk and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the chicken is fully cooked.
- Add the water or chicken stock, and simmer until the curry reaches the desired consistency.
- Stir in the brown sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice. Taste and season with additional salt if desired.
- Top with fresh cilantro, serve over cooked rice.
Notes
- Adjust the thickness of the curry sauce to preference. Add chicken stock or water to thin it after simmering or simmer longer to thicken the sauce.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Chicken, Dinner, Entree, Main Course
Cuisine American, Indian© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
This is delicious! I toasted some chickpeas spiced with garam masala and put them on top. Loved it!
Yum, sounds so good Sarah!
What an absolutely delicious recipe and so easy!! I will definitely be making this again and again! Thank you!
I was a bit apprehensive as this curry seems way simpler then the others I made in the past. Trust me and other reviewers this is amazing. Thanks for posting it I will for sure make this again. I love how easy you can take this to another level if you want to. Love it.
Excellent and easy.
This recipe is phenomenal. Even my 6 year old son said that this is his new favorite meal. Thanks for the great recipe!
Listen!! OMG!!!! When I tell you this is BEST chicken curry I’ve EVER eaten!!
I had to make a few substitutions as I didn’t have fish sauce nor thai red curry paste…
fish sauce:
a DROP of anchovy paste
a little low sodium soy sauce
fresh squeezed lime juice
stirred together…YUM
Thai red curry paste:
1/2 teaspoon tomato paste
teaspoon chili sauce
teaspoon thai red chili curry powder
mixed up…YUM
added the substitutions in per recipe and DAMN DELICIOUS!!!
THANK YOU!!
I just happened to have everything on hand, including fish sauce (something I got to know & like in the Philippines) and red curry paste, along with leftover rotisserie chicken, cut up, so I did find this an easy recipe and just tasty enough! I served it with some raisins & nut mixture and really wished I had mango chutney! I will likely make it again!
Ooooooooohhhhhh my God. Good freaking lord is this ever delicious!!!! I was too impatient to wait for it to thicken so I mixed two tablespoons of cornstarch & two tablespoons of cold water & it thickened it up good. I just had a taste & I might just eat this whole batch without sharing. lol
Wowza!!! This was out of this world!! Yummmmyyyyy !!! I made it the same way just added craisins and ginger! Wow!! We both thought is was warm and just s touch spicy!! Thank you!!
This recipe is AMAZING!!!! I tried this on my husband & he went crazy for it!! Now he asks for it all the time-only problem is who gets to the leftovers first….lol The only alterations i make is a low&slow cook on the onions so they’re at their peak of flavor, add gochugang &cayenne for heat. Scrumptous….thank u 4 this recipe!!
This curry is sooooooo delicious! I think it’s the best curry I’ve ever HAD! I didn’t have any store bought Thai red chili paste, so I googled a home made recipe and threw them in the mortar and pestle. Tasted amazing. Thank you!
such an easy recipe to follow and a really great turn out!! I put a little bit of a chicken bouillon cube at the end instead of chicken stock at the beginning it was just the right amount of salt needed!
Such a simple and satisfying recipe. It took little effort or prep to pull this meal off. My hubs, mother-in-law and I quickly gobbled up our servings. I added a few handfuls of spinach and sriracha to taste, otherwise stuck to the recipe and did not add extra liquid near the end. Thanks so much for sharing this, it’s easy to see why it’s so highly rated.
Well that was a surprise! The best curry I’ve ever made and the closest to an excellent takeaway meal! I’ve saved it to my recipe book forever. Thank you for the recipe.
Made this tonight for the first time. Loved it! I made mine with jasmine rice and steamed broccoli. The only change I would make is maybe a little less brown sugar. It was a bit sweet. But once I balanced it with some additional salt, bam! It was awesome! Can’t wait to check out some of your other dishes. Thanks I will make this again!
So happy you enjoyed it Kevin!
This recipe is awesome!! I grew up eating curry as my dad’s (now Ex) wife’s family would make it. I hadn’t had it in years. My husband tried some and loved it so he asked me to make it. Now making and eating something are two WAYYY different things hahahaha. But i found this recipe and made it and it was so easy and delicious! Thank you!! We are attempting to go back on Low carb so i’m serving it over zoodles tonight instead of rice. Wish me luck
Good luck Heather, not that you need it! You’ve got this.
This was SO good. I forgot to get fish sauce, so I used soy sauce instead. I also had the idea to stir in a can of chickpeas and they were a really good addition. Thank you for a great recipe!
Chickpeas sound like a great addition to the curry Joan!
Best chicken curry recipe I’ve tried! Thanks! I served it with some green peas and it was a great match. YUM!!!
You are very welcome Genice! So happy you loved it.
Thank you for the recipe. This is the favorite recipe in my family. I scale it up 4 times and it feeds 15 people. I serve it with basmati rice and warm naan bread. Corn also goes surprisingly well with it as a side! I’ve made it without the fish sauce and lime juice before and it is still amazing, the magic ingredients are definitely the red curry paste and the yellow curry powder!
So happy to hear you all loved it Adrian!
Every try this with a white fish? I’d imagine it’s quite good, being rather a bland fish that would allow the curry to come through nicely. Some extra care would have to go into steaming/frying the fish, and plating it on or beside the rice, then curry on top of all. I see someone already asked about and you confirmed that shrimp would be good, too. All sounds delicious.
Hi JJ, I haven’t tried it with white fish, but it sounds good! Let us know how it turns out.
I am going to try your chicken curry tomorrow. We love curry and your recipe looks really delicious.
I hope you love it Janice!