This delicious Coconut Curry Soup with Shrimp and Rice has wonderful flavor and cooks up really quickly thanks to a few special ingredients.
Coconut milk and curry paste are two of my favorite ingredients. Especially together. In fact, mixing coconut milk, curry paste, and leftovers from the night before is one of my favorite ways to reinvent the meal. The coconut milk is sweet and creamy and the curry paste is sweet and spicy. The two combine to taste nothing like the leftovers I started with.
Note that if you want things milder, you can use coconut milk in recipes without the curry paste. It’s still just as sweet and creamy, like in this recipe for Creamy Coconut Chicken Breasts.
Today’s recipe doesn’t rely on leftovers but it does use those two beloved ingredients. It’s a quick Coconut Curry Soup with Shrimp and Rice.
Saving Time On The Rice
We already talked about the coconut milk and the curry paste. They add so much flavor to this soup. The other ingredients are rice and shrimp.
This is a SOUPin15 recipe so it was a challenge to cook the rice quickly enough. You can absolutely cook rice in the microwave if you’d like. Click here for a super easy method. Or you can use leftover cooked rice or buy pre-cooked rice.
I used the pre-cooked rice here. It was one of the first times I’ve bought it. And I was happy with how it turned out. It’s a convenient item to have on hand for busy nights and it works really great in soups.
For more tips on how to make delicious homemade soup quickly, click here.
What Kind Of Shrimp Should I Use?
For the shrimp, buy them already shelled and deveined. They cook quickly but even in a short time they pick up the coconut and curry flavors.
If you like this shrimp soup I think you’ll also really like this flavorful mussel soup. The mussels are simmered in a spicy garlic tomato broth that’s amazing when soaked up by chunks of bread.
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Coconut Curry Soup with Shrimp and Rice
- Prep Time: 0 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Entrée
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Thai
DESCRIPTION
There are so many flavors going on this soup: Sweet. Spicy. Creamy. Good. The rice for this soup is cooked prior to adding it in. You can use leftover rice or you can buy pre-cooked rice.
To make this soup in under 15 minutes, first read through the recipe. While you read gather together all of the ingredients, tools, pots and pans that you’ll need. This way everything will be at your fingertips. But there is no need to prep any ingredients. All of the preparation is included in the instructions and counts towards the 15 minute cooking time.
Yield: 8 cups.
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp. vegetable or grape seed oil
- 1 small onion
- 1 red chili, plus more for optional garnish
- 2 cloves garlic
- 3 Tbsp. red curry paste
- 1 Tbsp. brown sugar
- 3 cups low or no sodium chicken broth
- 1 (13.5 oz.) can coconut milk
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. fish sauce
- 1 lime
- a big handful of fresh cilantro
- 1 (8.8 oz.) package of ready rice
- 1 lb. medium peeled and deveined shrimp
Instructions
- Measure the oil into a large pot or Dutch oven. Put it over medium heat. Peel and chop the onion. Add it to the oil. Stir. Chop one chili, de-seeding it or not as you like (leaving the seeds in is spicier than if you remove them). Add it to the pot. Stir. Peel and mince the garlic. Add it to the pot along with the red curry paste and brown sugar. Stir. Add the chicken broth, coconut milk, salt and fish sauce.
- Increase heat to high and cover until it reaches a boil, stirring often. Reduce heat to a simmer.
- While the soup is heating up, cut the lime into wedges and chop up the cilantro leaves. Thinly slice an additional red chili for garnish, if using.
- Once the soup is simmering, add the rice and the shrimp. Continue to simmer until the shrimp are pink and opaque.
- Ladle soup into bowls and serve the cilantro, lime, and sliced chilies on the side for use as garnish.
Donna says
I’m very creative and I like to cook. I make a soup similar to this all the time, sans curry. Instead I use lemongrass and Keifer lime leaves to flavor it. I don’t use recipes too much, so I can’t tell you the amounts, I just “eyeball” most of the ingredients. But next time I’m going to add fish sauce and cilantro to my soup. I never add rice but that’s a thought too. I love coconut and always have it on hand to make Thai food and other yummy dishes. Thanks, I will definitely try this great coconut curry recipe
PeggySue Perry says
Can you use veg stock instesd?
Christine Pittman says
Yes, that should work.
eat good 4 life says
I love Thai food and this Thai soup looks right up my alley. Great pictures too!!
Kailey says
I was looking for an easy side to go with the Vietnamese pork &  rice noodle salad I was making for dinner so I found and just made this recipe. I did not have shrimp so I upped the fish sauce a little (using 3/4-1 teaspoon), and I also skipped the rice. I was going for more of a sour Tom Kha Gai than a rich curry flavor so I added the juice of 2/3 of a lime directly to the soup when it had finished cooking. I also sautéed a little chopped celery with the onions and added sliced mushrooms towards the end of the simmer. Very yummy and so easy. Next time I will cook some chicken in the soup to make it more substantial.Â
Christine Pittman says
So happy you liked it, Kailey. Thanks for letting me know!