By now you all know that I love to have a few recipes that are quick to prepare and throw together…especially for weeknight meals. What I’m about to share with you is an absolute winner and holds up very well if you want to turn this in to lunch the next day or a dinner later on in the week. It is simple enough, doesn’t require a whole lot of crazy ingredients and you can prep this ahead of time so that you literally can throw this together in 20 minutes. Honestly, if you chop stuff in advance and have it ready to go…this dish will take no time at all.

I love me some Thai food! In fact when I was growing my tiny human, husband and I took a really great trip through south east Asia and when we got to Bangkok, I legit ate my way through the city! Grilled Fish, Green Curry, Red Curry, Tom Yum Soup, Pad Thai…I couldn’t stop because the food was so so good. Now I don’t profess to be an expert on Thai cooking but what I am almost an expert on is…EATING! I make this simple curry often as it’s comforting, a little spicy and allows me to use up all of the produce in my fridge and get a super dose of vegetables.

For this dish, I used a Red Thai Curry paste, which has maximum flavour and also allows you to speed up this dish. I have mad respect for people that make their own curry paste or curry from scratch, I know just how much love goes in to that. For me, I often don’t have the time to make my own paste and I’m totally cool with that because I have found a few brands of curry pastes that are affordable and super tasty.

Let’s get cooking, shall we? First thing you want to do is heat a little bit of oil in a skillet or pan. Today I’m using my gorgeous rondeau from Le Creuset. It’s deep enough for a curry sauce and roomy enough to sauté all of the vegetables so I figured, why not. Oh also, did I mention that it’s gorgeous??

Now that the oil is warm, you can add your pieces of raw chicken to the pan and start to brown.

While the chicken is cooking, go ahead and mix together the ingredients for the curry sauce. It’s super duper simple! I mix the coconut milk, peanut butter, red curry paste, soy sauce, and coconut sugar together in a large measuring cup (just so it’s easier to pour in to the pan when I need to). *If you are eating paleo, you can easily make some quick substitutions that will meet your dietary needs. Instead of soy sauce, you can substitute coconut aminos and for the peanut butter, you can substitute with almond butter.

Once the chicken is cooked, remove from the pan and set aside. If you need to, add a little bit more oil and you can start to sauté the onions and garlic for about a minute. Next you want to add the remaining vegetables and sauté for 2-3 minutes. You can easily add whatever vegetables you want. I often add, red pepper, green pepper, carrots, greens, celery. Seriously, don’t stress if you don’t have all the veggies, use what you have or what flavour combos work best for you. Also, if you aren’t in to meat, add more veggies and you got yourself a veggie curry.

Add Chicken back to the pan with the vegetables.

Pour the curry sauce over the chicken and vegetables and let it simmer together for a few minutes (up to 10 minutes). I don’t like to let it simmer too long in the sauce because I still like a bit of crunch with my vegetables.

Serve this dish with some Jasmine rice and you got yourself a winning dish. The great news here is that you will also likely have left overs so get ready to make all of your colleagues at work jelly to the max. I love it when someone is like ‘you guys get take out last night?’ …me with a side grin…’nah, just something I whipped together last night for a quick dinner’ . Feels so good to be a domestic goddess doesn’t it?

Thai Red Curry with Chicken and Vegetables

Ingredients

• 2 Chicken breasts or 6 chicken thighs sliced in to strips
• 2 carrots chopped in to 1 inch pieces
• 1 each red, yellow bell pepper chopped in to 1 inch pieces
• 1 onion, chopped in to 1 inch chunks (smaller if you aren’t in to that)
• 2 stalks celery chopped
• 2 stalks gai lan (Chinese broccoli) or green of your choice chopped.
• 2 Garlic cloves minced
• 2 Tbsp Oil (EVOO or Avocado Oil)
• 1 Tbsp rough chopped cilantro (optional)

Curry Sauce Ingredients

• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce (substitute Coconut Aminos if doing paleo)
• 1 Tbsp Red Thai Curry Paste
• 1 Tbsp Sugar (substitute Coconut Sugar if doing paleo)
• 2 Tbsp smooth Peanut Butter (substitute almond butter or sun butter if paleo)

Directions

1. Mix together ingredients for curry sauce until fully incorporated and set aside
2. Heat Pan with 1 tbsp of oil over medium heat
3. Brown chicken in pan until fully cooked. Remove from pan and set aside
4. Add the remaining oil and sauté onions and garlic for 1 minute
5. Add remaining vegetables and sauté for 2-3 minutes
6. Add chicken back to pan to join the veggies
7. Pour curry sauce over the mixture and let simmer for 8-10 minutes or your desired liking. *I like the veggies to still have some bite and note be too mushy
8. Add Cilantro to finish (Optional)
9. Serve over rice

As I’ve said before, you can prep ahead by chopping all of your veggies and chicken so that all you really have to do is throw this together. It’s such a simple weeknight meal that packs a great punch.

Hope you enjoy this one friends!!