My coconut ginger vegetable curry is bright, super flavorful, and easy to make! Our recipe is packed with vegetables and fresh flavor, thanks to red chili paste, ginger, coconut milk, and lime. A family favorite!
This simple vegetable curry is the answer when you want something hearty, really tasty, and packed with lots of nutritious veggies. Our recipe takes inspiration from a few regions, but I like to think of it as a Southeast Asian curry since we use Thai red curry paste and coconut milk.
This is a perfect vegetable recipe to keep in your back pocket for when you don’t have a plan for dinner but have a bunch of half-used veggies piling up in the fridge. It’s quick to make, light, and fresh. For more curry recipes, see our favorite chicken curry, these curried chickpea bowls, and our Thai curried cauliflower.
Key Ingredients
- Veggies: I always use a base of onion, but you can swap in the other veggies I recommend in the recipe below if you need to. I love cauliflower since it soaks up all that delicious coconut curry sauce. Other veggies we like to include are carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and green beans or snap peas.
- Fresh Garlic and Ginger: Store-bought curry paste already has some garlic and ginger added, but I like bumping up their flavor in the curry, so I use a generous amount of minced or grated garlic and ginger.
- Red Curry Paste and Turmeric: These add color and flavor to the curry. You can make your own red curry paste (recipe coming soon) or use store-bought. I have Thai Kitchen curry paste at home, and I use dried turmeric.
- Coconut Milk: I love full-fat coconut milk for this. When shopping for canned coconut milk, shake the cans. If you hear a lot of liquid, skip it. If you shake the can and it’s pretty quiet, you’ve found a can with lots of delicious coconut cream, making this curry more decadent and delicious.
- Fish Sauce: I’m a big fan of fish sauce for seasoning all sorts of dishes, but I especially love it for this creamy coconut ginger curry. I have Red Boat fish sauce in my kitchen and love it.
How to Make Vegetable Curry
When making this veggie curry, add the heartiest veggies first and follow up with the more delicate, quicker-cooking vegetables. I start with my onions, carrots, and cauliflower and cook them until they soften.
Then, stir in minced garlic, ginger, turmeric, and curry paste. Follow up with potatoes, coconut milk, and a bit of water. Simmer everything until tender, and finish with fresh chopped tomatoes and green beans.
Before serving, I season it with fish sauce, cilantro, and lime juice to taste. I love a good amount of lime! For serving, I love plain white rice, our cilantro lime rice, or for even more coconut flavor, this coconut rice!
Easy Vegetable Curry
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
This vegetable curry is quick and packed with flavor. We use store-bought Thai red curry paste (Thai Kitchen), but if you have your own, feel free to use it. You are also welcome to substitute green curry paste for the red curry paste.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
1 ½ tablespoons coconut oil or vegetable oil
1 large onion, halved and sliced
Half of a medium cauliflower, cut into florets
2 medium carrots, sliced
1 large Yukon Gold potato, halved and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon minced garlic, 3 to 4 medium cloves
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger, 1-inch piece of ginger
1 teaspoon dried turmeric or substitute 1 tablespoon minced fresh turmeric
1 ½ tablespoons red curry paste, we use Thai Kitchen
1 (15-ounce) can full-fat coconut milk, about 1 ½ cups
1 to 1 ½ cups water or use broth
Handful of green beans or snap peas, trimmed and cut in half
1 cup chopped tomatoes, 3 small tomatoes
1 tablespoon fish sauce, we use Red Boat
Handful fresh cilantro leaves with tender stems, chopped
Juice of 1 lime or more to taste
Directions
1Heat the oil in a wok or wide saucepan over medium-high heat. When the oil shimmers, add the onions, carrots, and cauliflower florets. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to take on a little color and soften, about 8 minutes.
2Toss in the minced garlic, ginger, and turmeric. Cook while tossing the spices around the pan for one minute.
3Add the curry paste, and then toss, making sure that it has a chance to coat most of the vegetables.
4Stir in the potatoes, coconut milk, and 1 cup of water. Stir, and then bring to a simmer. Cook, at a low simmer, until the potatoes are almost tender, 5 to 10 minutes. If the curry seems too thick or there isn’t enough liquid, add another 1/2 cup of water.
5Toss in the tomatoes and green beans, and cook another 3 to 5 minutes or until the green beans are bright green and tender.
6Finish by stirring in the fish sauce, cilantro, and lime juice. Taste and adjust with more fish sauce or lime juice if necessary.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Storing: Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to three days or freeze for up to one month.
- Vegan/Vegetarian substitution: Substitute the fish sauce for coconut aminos or a vegan fish sauce. You can also mimic the glutamates in fish sauce (rich, savory flavor) by adding soy sauce and mushroom powder. Here’s our mushroom powder recipe. We recommend starting with 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce and a teaspoon or two of mushroom powder, and then add more of each to taste.
- Gluten-free: Make sure that the curry paste and fish sauce you use are gluten-free.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates
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Hi, I randomly came across your website. I was looking for easy vegetarian recipes and happened on your site. I’m so jazzed! Thank you for what you do.
That’s very kind of you to say, Deborah! Welcome.
Really love this recipe. I add fresh pineapple to make it sweeter. The only concern is that will prefer to make my own curry paste instead using off the shelf. Will really hope to see the making of the red or green curry paste in the near future. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed the recipe. Making our own curry paste is something we have wanted to do for some time now. It is going to be dependent on sourcing all of the ingredients required to make the paste from scratch. If we find a method that we love we will be sure to update this recipe.
Delicious! Would definitely make this again, hit the curry spot for me
DELICIOUS!!!
Possibly the best curry I’ve ever made. Thanks for the recipe!
Was not pleased with this recipe – first the timing was completely off – you Indicate 5 minutes to have the potatoes be “almost tender”, it was more like 35 minutes – also it took ages to tenderize the peas. Second the use of snap peas was a complete mistake – they are in season but it should have been snow peas or as you did in the video green beans. Third it was not “packed with flavour “ as indicated- the fish sauce added a bitter taste which had to be over ridden with salt and sugar.
Most of your recipes are great – but this one not so much.
Hi John, We are sorry you didn’t enjoy the recipe. We slice our potatoes quite thin (see the video) so they do cook quickly. I altered the recipe instructions to make sure that is more clear. I’m not sure why your peas took so long to cook. For us, we really only need a few minutes for them to turn crisp tender and bright green. We use Red Boat fish sauce and love it. It’s possible that the fish sauce you used has a more bitter flavor than ours. If you can find it, I’d give Red Boat a try (we’ve seen it in most US grocery stores). Again, we are sorry the dish didn’t come out as expected!
Very tasty
Delicious and so easy. If you are averse to heat, start with less curry paste and build.
Can’t wait to try these recipes
I KNOW this will get 5 stars when I make it tomorrow. I am a “more-than-half a century” cook and your ingredients and photos make me in a hurry to make this. I would make it tonight but my chicken-veggie-noodle soup is already on the stove. Thanks for sending me your email. Can I get on your list which sends out more frequent emails? Keep on cooking and sharing your “do-able” recipes. One more thing: I have all these ingredients in my fridge and pantry so I don’t feel daunted by ingredient list. I encourage others to be creative and use what you have on hand. Eventually you will have curry paste and fish sauce and sesame oil among your pantry items.