With just 9 ingredients (and 2 optional ones) and 30 minutes of time in the kitchen, cooking dinner might be easier—and certainly cheaper—than going out or ordering takeout!
To Cook? Or Not to Cook?
That is the question. When you’ve had a long day, and you desperately need a plate of something delicious and comforting to not just fill your stomach, but bring some joy into your evening, you can end up with some pretty heavy choice paralysis. Do I go out to eat? Do I order in? Do I try to make something? Do I eat cold cereal? As a newly minted mom, I have been in this situation more times than I can count over the last year. If you’re like me and live in the suburbs (since getting married and having a baby, I’ve fully converted to suburban life), I’d wager that making this recipe for dinner is actually easier than going out or ordering takeout. Don’t get me wrong. I still love going out to eat. Offer me a meal I didn’t cook, and I’m a happy camper. But…going out for dinner on a weeknight? Or lazily ordering takeout at whatever time I realized I was hungry? That was the stuff of my 20s. These days, it looks more like this:
Going out:
Finding a restaurant within reasonable driving distance that has a table available, while your husband wraps up a work meeting and you try to eek out a last smidge of productivity. Putting on a decent outfit to get yourself (and your husband, baby, and diaper bag) loaded into the car. Figuring out what said baby will eat at said restaurant. Making sure you get home in time for a final bottle, bath, and bedtime routine with a 7:30 deadline. You scarf your dinner while your husband tends to the baby, and then switch places, counting the minutes to 7:00, mentally calculating the drive time back home, and wondering why the guy you married can’t chew faster as you wave down a waiter for the check.
Ordering takeout:
Taking way too long to deliberate over options and look over the menu. Over-ordering in a delirious state of weeknight hanger, and deciding who will drive out to pick it up and who will hold down the fort at home. Microwaving the food because it’s sort of lukewarm after the trip in the car, and contending with a mountain of those plastic tupperware containers that you dutifully spend 20 minutes washing at the end of the night, only to put them in the tupperware cabinet, where they will forever part ways with their lids, never to be seen or heard from again. Is it just me!? Perhaps I’m painting too dire a picture. It isn’t always like this, but it too often is! This is what I mean when I say that cooking might be the answer—as long as the recipe is easy. Which brings me to this coconut shrimp curry, in a creamy, delectable red curry sauce. This recipe is truly easy enough for a weeknight dinner. Imagine this alternative scenario: ending the workday, walking into the kitchen, taking out a few ingredients, and getting something bubbling on the stove within a few minutes. Your husband handles baby’s dinner, bottle, and bedtime, and by 7:30, you’re both sitting down on the couch for a night of blissful TV watching and coconut curry shrimp. So much better.
Simple Enough for a Weeknight
If you buy peeled, deveined shrimp, the only prep you need to do is to mince up a couple cloves of garlic and to cut an onion, ½ a bell pepper, and a couple slices of ginger. The ingredients that do all the heavy lifting on flavor are two things that come in a can: Thai red curry paste and coconut milk. First, peel the shrimp if it hasn’t already been peeled. You can remove the tail or leave it on—your choice. Use a pair of kitchen shears to open up the back of the shrimp and expose the vein. Pull it out, and rinse. While I personally prefer a whole can of red curry paste here, make the curry milder by using ½ a can. The whole can route is capital-S Spicy, so…know thyself. It all depends on your spice tolerance! With a whole can of curry paste, no additional salt is needed. However, if you reduce the curry paste amount, be sure to taste at the end and season with additional salt. You don’t even need to have planned this dinner in advance. Thawing shrimp right from the freezer is easy! See below: As long as you have coconut milk and curry paste in the pantry and shrimp in the freezer, you can come home from a long day, put a pot of rice on, and have a steaming plate of coconut curry shrimp in 30 minutes or less. No car rides, no menu deliberations, no questioning of your husband’s chewing ability. We just put the shrimp in a bowl and cover them in some cold water. (You don’t need to put them in a zip-lock bag first. That’s just unnecessary plastic use.) Leave them for 15 minutes or so while you prep the other ingredients for the dish, changing the water out a couple times as they thaw. When it comes to vegetables, feel free to customize this recipe according to what you have on hand, or even add additional vegetables! The amount of sauce here could probably take up to 1½ cups of additional vegetables if desired.
The Key to Not Overcooking Your Shrimp
So how do you make a richly flavored coconut curry sauce, while also making sure not to overcook your shrimp, which takes just minutes (seconds, really) to cook through perfectly? Answer: We sear the shrimp in the very beginning, and cook just until they’re about 75% cooked. Then, in the shrimp-infused oil, you make the curry sauce. The shrimp get added back in at the end to finish cooking. This is very similar to our stir-frying technique, in which meat is pre-seared until partially cooked, and then added back to the wok in the final stages of cooking. This ensures that you can get your curry sauce exactly how you want it before adding the shrimp, and that you get perfectly juicy shrimp at the end. Without further ado, on to the shrimp curry recipe!
Coconut Curry Shrimp Recipe Instructions
Heat a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. (I used a large nonstick skillet myself.) Add 1 tablespoon of oil, and spread it around to coat. Add the shrimp, and allow it to sear for 30 seconds on 1 side. Then stir-fry for 30 seconds, until the shrimp is 75% cooked (it should be mostly opaque). Turn off the heat, remove the shrimp to a bowl, and set aside. Over medium heat, add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the pan, along with the garlic and ginger. Fry for 30 seconds, until fragrant. Increase the heat to medium-high, add the curry paste, and fry for another minute. Stir in the brown sugar. Then add the onion and pepper, and fry for 2 minutes. Add the can of full-fat coconut milk. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. (From this point on, keep the curry at a simmer. Avoid boiling it too vigorously, or the coconut milk may split and have a grainy appearance.) Simmer for 2 minutes to thicken the sauce and cook the onions down. Stir in the shrimp (along with any juices), and simmer for 1 more minute. Taste and season with additional salt if needed (particularly if you used less curry paste). Garnish with fresh cilantro (AKA coriander) if desired, and serve! You can serve this with jasmine rice, brown rice, or black rice. Check out our article on how to cook rice without a rice cooker, and how to cook black rice. For a middle ground between a healthier option and the irresistible allure of white rice, try my sister’s Quinoa Rice! Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
