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Instant Pot Thai Green Chicken Curry

This curry is so adaptable - reduce the sauce until thick and rich, then serve it over rice. Prefer your curry with noodles? Then leave the sauce as it is after the NPR and serve in a deep bowl with rice stick noodles. 

Course: Main Course
Servings: 4 people
: 530 kcal
Ingredients
For the curry paste:
  • 3 shallots, peeled
  • 2 cloves of garlic, peeled
  • 1 green chilli*
  • 1 inch fresh ginger, peeled
  • 1 lime, zest and juice
  • 1 stalk lemongrass
  • 2/3 bunch Thai basil (use a supermarket packet which is usually 30g worth)
To cook:
  • 1 tbsp coconut/olive/vegetable oil as preferred
  • 500-600 g chicken thigh fillets, cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 400 g tin of coconut milk (reduced or full fat work here)
Optional:
  • 3/4 cup white basmati rice (3/4 cup for 2 people, 1.5 cups for 4 people)
Instructions
For the paste:

  1. Reserve a tbsp or two of finely chopped Thai basil to serve later. Ensuring it is well washed, put the rest of the bunch into the food processor or blender, stalks and all. 

  2. Add the rest of the paste ingredients and blitz to a paste. These may take a few minutes and a couple of scraping downs to ensure it is well blended. You could do this in a mortar and pestle with a fair bit more effort! 

To cook:

  1. Put the Instant Pot in Sauteé mode. Add the oil and when hot, stir in the paste. Cook for a couple of minutes until the aromas are released, stirring frequently.

  2. Add the chicken and cook for a couple of minutes, to ensure each piece is well coated with the paste and it is sealed all over. Stir in the coconut milk, mixing really well so that there are no lumps of coconut remaining. 

  3. Now, here is where you can chose to cook the curry by itself or cook the rice at (more-or-less) the same time. 

If cooking the curry without rice:

  1. Place the lid on, set the IP to Manual High and cook for 12 minutes with a QPR when ready. Remove the chicken to a warmed serving bowl and reduce the sauce to desired consistency. If serving with noodles, you may prefer to leave the sauce quite thin (it is the consistency of single cream without reducing it) and serve it all as it is now. Serve with the extra Thai basil on top. 

If cooking rice with the curry:

  1. Place the lid on, set the IP to Manual High and cook for just 4 minutes with a QPR when beeper sounds. Remove the lid, give the curry a stir then place a tall trivet inside the pot. 

  2. Place either a silicone cake tin or a stainless steel bowl (links below recipe to the ones I use) on top of the trivet with the rice and 3/4 cup of cold water in (double the rice and water if feeding 4 people from this recipe). Replace the lid and set to Manual High for 8 mins. QPR to finish.

  3. Remove the rice carefully wearing oven gloves and immediately pop the IP onto Sauté to start reducing the sauce down. Divide rice between serving bowls. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and top the rice with it. When sauce reduced to your liking, pour over the chicken and serve with the extra Thai basil on top. 

Recipe Notes

*= with regards to the chilli, add as much as you like. You can use a deseeded short, fat chilli (which are jalapeño most often in UK supermarkets) for a mild heat or one or two whole Thai chillies if you like it ferociously hot. 

If doing a pot-in-pot technique, you will need to ensure your silicone mould or stainless steel bowl have at least 1 inch of space all around them when inside the inner pot to allow steam to circulate or the rice will not cook.