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.
Really delicious and easy!!!
I make this dish at least once a month using either chicken, beef or chickpeas. My family and I love it and my mother who is Jamaican gives it 2 thumbs up.
Where and what brand of yellow curry should one pick up.
Any yellow curry powder will work, your local grocery stores will have it in the spice aisle!
I’ve made this recipe several times, it’s one of my regular meals. I follow the recipe as is however I add 2 chopped red chilies with the onion/garlic, and I always add 1-2 cans of chick peas/extra coconut milk so I have enough to spread it over a few days. At the end of cooking I add some chopped spinach or other green that I have on hand, as well as some red chili powder for some heat! Super healthy, easy, and delicious!
By far the best curry I have ever made. This is my go to for every occasion! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe.
Not at all like an Indian curry. More a north American ersatz. The lack of depth of taste makes the curry bland.
There are better recipes out there.
Correct Nick, this is not an Indian curry. It is simply a chicken curry. Sorry that you didn’t enjoy it as much as we do. Thank you for trying it.
Disappointing. Very bland. FYI
I’m sorry this didn’t work out for you Bridgette. We haven’t had a problem with it being bland.
Did you use light coconut milk or full fat? Were your spices and paste fresh and did you add the fish sauce and lime juice?
LOVE this recipe! We make it all the time. I add just a smidge of chopped ginger and that’s about it. It’s so good Mom asked for me to make this for her for mother’s Day. Yum yum yum yum!
Wonderful recipe! I added a mix of veggies-broccoli, red pepper, zucchini, Indian eggplant, and sugar peas to the basic recipe and served it over jasmine rice. Definitely a winner.
Delicious and so easy! Had to sub a few ingredients I was out of. I was out of red curry paste and only had roasted red pepper paste (which had no heat) so I added chipotle chiles with adobo sauce and some curry powder. My son likes diced tomatoes and lots of sauce, so I added an additional can of coconut milk and a can of roasted diced tomatoes (probably had about 1 1/2 lbs of chicken). Added enough chicken base instead of salt.
This is the first recipe for curry chicken I found. I’ve not had to tweak any of the ingredients and it is delicious every time. If you’ve never made this type of food before this is the recipe you want! Quick and easy!
Great dish! I was wondering how long I can keep this in the fridge for? I’ve made this before and I kept it for about a week and it was fine. Thanks!
Cooked chicken will safely last 3-4 days in the refrigerator. Enjoy Lewis!
Sooooo good! I have made this recipe for my house and for guests. Everyone loves it! I like the add 1/2 diced sweet potato or sliced carrots and sometimes red bell pepper but the flavor of the curry is really the star! I’ve even doubled the recipe and froze it, which was also delish and quick!
I made this for my wife’s birthday dinner. It was easy and absolutely delisious. I doubled the recipe for 4 adults expecting leftovers but everyone wanted more and there were no leftovers. Don’t understand anyone who says the flavour was bland. It was so tasty and had the perfect amount of bite for the two people in my group who don’t love spicy food. Followed the recipe to a tee. Will definitely make this again.
Can this recipe be doubled as is in a 6 qt IP? I made this last week and it was AMAZING – next time i need to make more!!!
I haven’t tried this in an IP so I can’t say for sure how it would work. Let us know how it goes!
I made this dish for my husband and brother in-law and they loved it. I did however add slivered carrots and some pineapple. Turned out perfectly.
How would you make it Spivey?
If you would like it to be spicier you could add more red curry paste.
Chop up a pepper of choice and add it in the the garlic and onions
Not sure what went wrong, but my curry came out surprisingly bland. Like, really really bland. :( I’m confused how so many people aren’t having this problem. Perhaps it can be fixed by adding more curry powder and paste, but then I’m not sure why that isn’t already built into the recipe. Very confused…
I’m sorry this didn’t work out for you, we haven’t had a problem with it being bland.
I can’t say for sure what went wrong for you. Did you use light coconut milk or full fat? Were your spices and paste fresh and did you add the fish sauce and lime juice?
My only complaint-it didn’t make enough. Wow! This was sooo good! I followed the instruction verbatim-well I did add salt along the way-instead of waiting until the end-but other than that-followed every instruction. Sooooo good!
This was very tasty. We had it for dinner last night. I didn’t need to add any chicken broth, (it wasn’t too thick at all), but I did add a cup of frozen peas at the end for some extra veg. Served over cauliflower rice. Will definitely make this again – hubby and I both really enjoyed it. Thank you!
Hello! I can’t wait to make this tonight!
My local grocery store ran out of fish sauce. Is there any subsitute I could use?
The fish sauce adds lovely a salty umami flavor however if you don’t have any on hand you can leave it out or add a tiny bit of soy sauce. Enjoy!