Easy Thai Shrimp Soup
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Skip the take-out and try making this at home – it’s unbelievably easy and 10000x tastier and healthier!
I am such a sucker for Thai take-out, particularly for red curry and coconut soup. But ordering take-out has been getting a bit costly so this homemade coconut curry soup comes in very handy, especially during the cold, winter months. And the leftovers taste a million times better too.
Best of all, it’s so easy to make and it doesn’t require ingredients that are hard to find. And if you’re not a fan of shrimp, you can easily swap that out for chicken, pork or even tofu for a vegetarian option.
Either way, you’ll be sure to skip your usual Thai take-out and indulge in this budget-friendly version instead.
Easy Thai Shrimp Soup: Frequently Asked Questions
You can thaw frozen shrimp overnight, transferring it from the freezer to the fridge the day before. For a quick thaw, you can run them under cold water until completely thawed, about 5-10 minutes. Pat them dry as thoroughly as possible to remove any excess moisture.
Yes! Chicken is a great swap for the shrimp, and you can sub chicken stock for the vegetable stock as well.
I personally love Mae Ploy (contains shrimp paste). Thai Kitchen is also great, and more readily available at most grocery stores.
Easy Thai Shrimp Soup
Ingredients
- 1 cup basmati rice
- 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 2 tablespoons red curry paste
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 (12-ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk
- 3 cups vegetable stock
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Instructions
- In a large saucepan of 1 1 /2 cups water, cook rice according to package instructions; set aside.
- Season shrimp with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Melt butter in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add shrimp, and cook, stirring occasionally, until pink, about 2-3 minutes; set aside.
- Add onion and bell pepper to the Dutch oven. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 3-4 minutes.
- Stir in red curry paste, garlic and ginger until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
- Stir in coconut milk and vegetable stock; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until slightly thickened, about 8-10 minutes.
- Stir in rice, shrimp, lime juice and cilantro.
- Serve immediately.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
Thank you, this really was “Damn Delicious”, I’m making this for the second time in three weeks. Yum!!!
Can I sub green curry paste for red?
Yes!
Can you add rice noodles or some type of asian noodle?
Yes, absolutely.
I tried this soup and my family loved it. I doubled the recipe. Next time I make it, I will increase the curry paste by about a tablespoon, decrease the vegetable broth by 2 cups and probably add carrots. Oh and I will chop the red peppers into bigger pieces! It is a great soup both savory and sweet and my whole family loved it which does not happen very often. Also, I used the basmati rice mix from Trader Joes as that was all I had. I will definitely put this on my make again and again and again list!
This looks amazing, would it work to cook in the crock pot?
It is very difficult to give exact conversion information to translate a traditional stovetop recipe to be used in a slow cooker without further recipe testing. However, here is an article worth checking out on a possible conversion guide. Hope that helps!
Can’t wait to make this! If I wanted to serve more people than 6, could I just double the ingredients to make a larger portion?
Yes!
I love, love, love this soup!! This is definitely one of my all time favorites.
The only 2 changes I made were that I used roasted red peppers and in the end added
about one and a half tablespoons of honey. I feel that the honey added a little more balance.
With all this snow we have, it’s nice to have something with a little heat. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this recipe.
When I calculate the nutrition info, I’m getting way different results. I’m getting 387 calories, 13 g fat, 52 g carbs, and 32 g protein. I’m using MyFitnessPal and the exact ingredients and amounts. Any idea what’s going on?
Yes, my apologies. The numbers have been updated.
All i have is red curry sauce-do you know the what the equlivant of red curry paste to red curry sauce?
Unfortunately, without further recipe testing, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment regarding substitutions and modifications.
I made this last night and it was a huge hit with my family! Quick question. Has anyone ever used tofu instead of shrimp, and if so, how did they do it?
I just made this. I cannot believe how delicious it came out. Thank you for this recipe.
made this for my family, they loved it! even though I 2x it there’s not much leftover:-)
it was a little spicy tho.. I was wondering why and then I looked at the curry paste bottle and it was at its highest!! make sure you don’t make that mistake!
but lucky for me they LOVE spicy (well most of ’em)
thanks chungah! I am not going to put my email on here for safety reasons btw:)
I don’t have fresh ginger, would the ground ginger work?
Yes, the ratio for fresh to dry herbs is typically 3:1.
I made this and it was very good. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m wondering if anyone has tried it with rice noodles instead of rice? And did it turn out?
Love this soup! Made it a few weeks ago and again tonight. I added a few more vegetables (carrots, celery & green pepper) as well as some mushrooms. Other than that followed the recipe exactly. So so good.
Thank you for this recipe… it is delicious! I used green chili paste instead of red, just because it’s what I had on hand. Didn’t feel like it was spicy enough, so added some cayenne. I kinda over-did it. I loved it but my family complains that it hurts their throat, though they still really like it and continue to eat it. 🙂
This is a beautiful recipe. I added Talipia chunks as well. My wife & I loved it.
It is my very strict policy that when trying a new recipe I follow it to the letter. But for the first time, I had to break that policy due to being ill with a terminal (probably) cold. I had ingredients close enough to what was called for to justify skipping a potentially life-threatening trip to the grocery store and making substitutions. I used chicken stock instead of vegetable, jasmine rice instead of basmati, pre-cooked shrimp, omitted the peppers and cilantro, and added a splash of fish sauce (that may have been the NyQuil’s idea). Basically, I felt like I was completely butchering your beautiful recipe.
It was delicious.
I think that if you don’t alter the basics too much (broth, red curry paste, and coconut milk) you can get pretty creative with this soup.
This is a perfect recipe for someone suffering with a cold. Thank you; it really did help me feel better 🙂
I’d like to halve the shrimp and add tofu. Any ideas at what stage of add the tofu? Fry it with the shrimp and set aside, or fry with the onions? I’m not very familiar with cooking with tofu but I’d like to cut the cost a bit.
You can stir in the tofu with the rest of the ingredients in step #6.