The Goan Curry Paste is a red, essential coconut curry paste prepared in all homes in Goa, India.
The paste is easy to prepare, saves you time for making a fresh curry from scratch, and you can freeze a batch for another day.
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Traditional Uses
The Goan curry paste is essential in any kitchen in the coastline state of Goa, India.
Locals prepare it from scratch with commonly found local fresh ingredients such as coconut, tamarind, ginger, garlic, and spices.
The red coconut curry paste is used to prepare the all-famous Goan fish curry, prawn curry, egg curry, and any vegetable curries such as the plain sorak curry.
If you love lightly spiced, flavorful Goan food, then this is your next kitchen project.
Ingredients
Essentially, you will need ingredients that are commonly available in Goa. Getting these ingredients abroad can be at times challenging, but I have been there and I found solutions.
- Coconut — You require freshly grated white coconut. You can purchase a coconut, and crack it open. Then you will either have to scratch out the coconut or you can also break out the white coconut and place it into a food processor, which will result in easier to process snow-like coconut.
- Kashmiri Chili Pepper — Kashmiri chilies are not hot, but instead give the curry paste the red orange color. I recommend getting them, but alternatively, you can use sweet paprika powder, yet the flavor result will be different.
- Tamarind Paste — Gives the curry a tangy flavor. This ingredient can be left out if you can't get it.
- Ginger + Garlic — I recommend using ginger garlic paste as it mixes in easily. Optionally, you can use freshly grated ginger and whole garlic. Full garlic will blend well, but raw ginger chunks won't, and therefore you will need to use grated ginger or finely chopped ginger if you don't have it in a paste form.
- Onion — In Goa, they use purple onions. You can also use white or yellow onions if this is what you can get.
- Turmeric Ground
- Cumin Seeds Ground
- Black Pepper Ground
- Coriander Seeds Ground
- Water
When I posted this recipe, I used to make the paste as described here and shown in the video. Over the years, however, I started adding a tomato too to the mix.
Normally, in Goa, they will first briefly stir cook the curry paste in oil and then add diced tomatoes to build up the curry. But over the years, we, including my mother-in-law, started to add the tomato to the curry paste directly.
Adding the tomato to the paste adds flavor and texture and at the same time, you won't have to add it again at a later stage when you are cooking the curry in hurry.
How to make it?
Step 1
Remove the stems from your red chili pepper and add them with the coconut to a blender jar.
Step 2
Add to the blender jar the onion, tamarind, ground spices and water.
Step 3
Close the lid of the jar and blend fine
Step 4
Eventually, add some more water if the blender is struggling. The result should be a smooth paste.
Step 5
Use the paste in a curry or freeze.
📖 Recipe
Goan Coconut Curry Paste Recipe
Ingredients
- 3-5 Kashmiri Chili Pepper or similar dried
- 1 Coconut Raw Freshly Shredded *see Notes
- 1 Tablespoon Tamarind Paste optional
- ½ Onion large
- 1 Tablespoon Ginger + Garlic *see Notes
- ¼ Teaspoon Turmeric Ground
- ¼ Teaspoon Cumin Seeds Ground
- 1 Teaspoon Coriander Seeds Ground
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground
- 1 Cup Water
Instructions
- Remove the stems from the clean red chili. Place the whole red chili into the blender jar and add the shredded fresh coconut.3-5 Kashmiri Chili Pepper, 1 Coconut Raw Freshly Shredded
- Continue to add in the tamarind Paste (optional), peeled Onion half, Ginger Garlic and spices (ground turmeric, cumin, black pepper and coriander seed powder) Then add 1 cup of water too.1 Tablespoon Tamarind Paste, ½ Onion, 1 Tablespoon Ginger + Garlic, ¼ Teaspoon Turmeric Ground, ¼ Teaspoon Cumin Seeds Ground, ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground, 1 Teaspoon Coriander Seeds Ground, 1 Cup Water
- Close the lid and blend the paste. If the blending is getting too heavy, turn off the kitchen gadget, open the lid and add some more extra water. The paste should be as fine as possible in consistency.
- You can use your curry paste straight away to make a curry, or freeze in a freezer-friendly container.
Notes
- Use a quality and powerful blender to prepare the paste.
- You can store the paste in the freezer and use whenever you want to make a curry. It simplifies and helps in reducing time when preparing a Goan fish curry from scratch.
- Makes about 1.1 pounds or ½ kilogram, which you can use for 1 curry. 1 Curry can be for 6–12 servings, depending on the quantity used and thickness of the curry.
- For the coconut, get fresh coconut with the white part in it (not virgin tender coconut!). Most coconuts abroad come with the white flesh. Crack open the coconut and take out the white fruit flesh. Grind it fine in a food processor, and that's shredded coconut.
- Use Ginger and garlic fresh (ratio 1:2) or use in paste form
Nutrition
Tips
The key for a flavorful Goan coconut curry paste is to use fresh ingredients only, besides the spices.
When making the Goan curry paste you need to blend it to a very smooth consistency and that's the actual tricky part.
You need a powerful blender to make a smooth curry paste.
You will be blending for a couple of minutes and the coconut etc. can be quite a load to turn all the ingredients into a smooth paste without pieces.
Hence, why I recommend trying to recreate this curry paste with a quality blender only or else you will get frustrated.
Storing
The red curry paste can be frozen, so basically what locals do, they freeze a batch or two and use it at a later time.
Freezing in batches saves so much time while making a curry from scratch.
It will take you only 20 minutes to make a prawn curry from scratch with this Goan curry paste.
To thaw your curry paste, keep it in the fridge overnight or thaw it in your oven or microwave. You can also just heat it over the stove top.
Made this for my wife and myself, she loved it !!
Any idea how to mike this into a sauce ..
Hi Steve, You can use this paste as a curry base as in a sorak curry, egg or shrimp curry.
Hi! I’ve never had a goan Curry but would love to try it. Plz can you provide directions as to how I can use this curry paste to make the actual curry.
TIA
Sumayya
HI Sumayya, you can use this paste in this sorak curry or in this egg curry or in this shrimp curry.
For how many weeks can this be frozen,?
Hi Sakina, you can freeze the curry paste for at least 2 months. Hope this helps.
Love making condiments like this and this one is very new to me. Coconut and tamarind...sounds very interesting with all those other seasonings. Thanks for sharing this.
I have never heard of this before but it looks delicious. I can't wait to try it!
Wow I just made curry yesterday !! Wish I would've stumbled upon this earlier to try it out. Next time for sure ?
I will be making this to freeze .Sounds delicious.One question ,the coconut if frozen alter the taste of the paste in any way ?
Hi Amrita,
Freezing the coconut curry paste doesn't alter the taste as such, however fresh is of course always fresh. I think you will have no problems with the taste of the frozen curry paste.
Fresih is always better, do not freeze it more than 2 weeks.
This looks absolutely delicious, I have never thought to make my own goan curry paste. Thanks for the recipe, I will pin for later.
There is really nothing. Enter than freshly made curry paste. I don't cook Indian food all that often so I freeze my fresh curry pastes in one tablespoon portions and that way I have fresh curry paste when I need it. I just love the colour of this tasty paste.
The curry paste looks so beautiful, those colors! I got to give try to this one soon.
This looks yummy. I remember Goan fish curries. They were very tasty. am sure this too.
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I will try making this. My husband and I we love curry. I didn't know you can freeze it, so that is one thing I love about it.
oh yum, sounds like some delicious flavours there. I love trying out different curry recipes. I'll have to give your paste a try. Thanks for sharing.
Lennae xxx
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Sounds like a recipe and quick one which it's even better.
Really like the fact that you can freeze this! I can make a bit batch of it that way and use it multiple times. 🙂 Good stuff -- thanks.
You gave clear instructions. This seems easy to follow, even for me. 🙂 The ingredients used sounds like they will taste good.
I had no idea how simple it is to make Goan Curry Paste. I have to try this recipe at home. Thanks for sharing!
Would you believe I've never tried this? I really need to get out more. Will definitely be spicing up my kitchen variety with this soon!
This sounds really interesting and easy to make. I just have no clue where I'm going to get fresh coconut in Chicago! LOL!
I think you should be able to get coconuts in an Asian stores. In Europe they sell coconuts in regular grocery shops so maybe you can just go to your neighborhood store, they must just have some. Otherwise I am sure you can buy it online too. Same goes for the tamarind paste. Amazon sells fresh coconuts and tamarind paste in the US. 🙂
Frozen grated coconut sealed in polythene bags and canned coconut milk is available, if there is a Indian population from the coastal regions of Asia Minor, where you live then, I am sure there will be coconut products available
I've never made my own curry paste; I've always done store-bought. This looks incredible though. I have to give it a try!
How interesting. I've never tried this before but would be open to it. I do love my spicy foods!
A good curry paste is an essential in making a tasty curry. This looks great and as it can be frozen too even better
There is nothing like making your own curry pastes! I so love the flavors in this one. Must give this a try soon!!
I've always fully appreciated that making your own curry paste fresh gives such a good flavour to any curry dish. Whereas it can seem like a faff, I've found that it is relatively easy and it is good to freeze too (as you mention). Always worth that little bit of effort.