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I’ve been making this easy shrimp curry dinner every week for the past few months. It’s SO easy to throw together, relies on pantry ingredients for quick flavor, and is done in 35 minutes with minimal pans to clean. Onion, garlic, and curry powder lay the foundation of flavor for the creamy coconut milk sauce. Then green beans briefly cook in the silky sauce before seared shrimp are thrown in to warm through. It truly doesn’t get easier (or more versatile) than this.
Helpful Ingredient Notes
This recipe is so simple and streamlined that I have very few ingredient notes. First, through my rounds of testing, I found thin green beans (known as haricot verts) are best. They cook quickly and have a nice tender texture. If you can’t find then, no worries, regular work well too.
Additionally, not all curry powders are created equal. I tested a few different curry powders, and this is by far my favorite.
Cooking Tips from Recipe Testing
You may be surprised to see that I tell you to avoid browning the onions. Usually I want you to brown aromatics and achieve some color because color is flavor. But here, I want the onions to almost melt into the sauce.
So, in this recipe it’s all about slowly sweating them down instead of browning. If the onions start to brown but aren’t softened yet, turn the heat down. And if they’re softened and starting to brown, you know it’s time to move on to the next step.
One of the biggest decisions I had to make when developing this recipe was choosing between one or two cans of coconut milk. The goal was to create a saucy dish you could spoon over rice.
However, when I deglazed the pan with a can of coconut milk, it evaporated off a lot of moisture, resulting in not enough sauce. But two cans of coconut milk essentially turned the dish into a soup.
So, to ensure the dish stays nice and saucy, I found deglazing with some water before adding the coconut milk results in the perfect amount of sauce.
Let’s Walk Through How Simple It Is to Make
- Sear the shrimp until pink on both sides.
- It’s OK if they’re slightly under-cooked—they’ll continue to cook once they’re added back to the sauce.
- Sweat down the onion, then add the sliced garlic and cook briefly.
- Add the curry powder and cook briefly to toast.
- Deglaze the pan with water, scraping up as much of the fond from the pan as you can.
- Stir in the coconut milk.
- Stir in the green beans.
- Cover and cook until crisp-tender.
- Add the shrimp back in and cook until warmed through.
- Stir in the cilantro and serve over rice.
How I Like to Serve It
This is an all-in-one meal, so usually I just serve it on its own. However, if I want to balance out the savoriness with some sweet, I’ll pair it with a fruit salad. All of these salads also pair well with Coconut Curry Mussels.
Side Salad
Savory Citrus Salad with Peanuts
Side Salad
Simple Strawberry Salad with Basil
Side Salad
Grape Salad Recipe
Coconut Shrimp Curry with Green Beans
Description
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Ingredients
- 1 cup dry basmati or jasmine rice, cooked according to package directions
- 1 tablespoon olive oil or coconut oil
- 1½ pounds colossal (16/20) or jumbo (21/25) shrimp, peeled, deveined, and patted dry
- Kosher salt
- 1 cup diced white onion
- 3 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons curry powder
- 1 pound green beans (ideally haricot verts), washed and cut into 1 ½-inch pieces (~5 cups)
- 2 –4 tablespoons water
- 1 (15-ounce) can coconut milk
- ¾ cup roughly chopped cilantro
- 1 lime
Instructions
- Rinse rice, then cook according to package directions on the stovetop or in a rice cooker.
- Meanwhile, heat oil over medium in a large sauté pan until shimmering. Lightly sprinkle salt over shrimp, then add to pan and cook just until pink, 1½–2½ minutes per side; transfer to a plate.
- Reduce heat to medium-low, add onion and ¾ teaspoon salt; cook until softened and translucent, 8–10 minutes. (The goal here is to soften, not brown! So if the onions are getting brown, turn the heat down.)
- Add garlic and cook 30 seconds, and curry powder and cook 1 minute.
- Drizzle 2 tablespoons water into skillet to deglaze; scraping up all of the fond on the bottom of the pan, adding additional water, by tablespoon, as needed. Slowly stir in coconut milk, then bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, stir in green beans, cover and let cook until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in shrimp and cook just to warm through. Off heat, stir in cilantro. Give it a taste and season with additional salt as needed.
- Serve over rice; top each serving with a grating of lime zest. Cut the lime into wedges and serve alongside to squeeze over top.
