You might also like these recipes for Thai curried chickpeas, Thai green curry and jackfruit curry. Thai food, like this massaman curry, is always a crowd pleaser, and one of the reasons for this, perhaps, is the fact that it has evolved – and continues to evolve – as a fusion of many different cuisines from around the world. Many of the Thai dishes we are familiar with today have strong influences of Chinese, Indian, Malaysian and Indonesian food, thanks to migrants from these nations who carried their beloved native foods into Thailand. This vegan massaman curry is strongly influenced by Indian cuisine, and it is one of my favorite Thai dishes.
What is massaman curry?
A massaman curry is one of Thailand’s best known–and best loved–dishes. It has a pretty peanut-butter-colored sauce with chili-stained flecks of coconut fat, large pieces of cinnamon and star anise, and chunky vegetables. There are many stories about how the massaman curry originated, but the most common one, and the most plausible, is that it was created by Muslim traders from the middle east and India who traveled to Thailand. They married spices from their native cuisines with local ingredients to create an exquisite dish that earned the sobriquet of “Muslim Curry” (“Massaman” is a corruption of the Urdu and Arabic term for muslim, “mussalman.”).
How to make vegan massaman curry
Massaman curry is typically made with meat, either chicken or beef. But it is very possible to make it completely vegan and just as delicious. To keep mine as authentic tasting as possible, I chose jackfruit as my meat substitute. Raw jackfruit, with its chewy texture, emulates chicken beautifully in vegetarian dishes. This giant, thorny-skinned fruit–whose incredible sweetness and deliciousness when ripe has earned it a cult following globally and especially in the countries where it grows–is great in Thai curries, and it grows locally there. If you are familiar with Thai cuisine to any degree, you probably know that most curries start out with spice pastes. For a massaman curry this would be massaman paste, which is not unlike a Thai red curry paste with a few additional spices in it, like nutmeg and cloves. Check to get new recipe updates by email.
I just use red curry paste, because it is close enough to massaman paste and I almost always have some on hand, I love it so. You can find vegan jarred red curry pastes in the market now (Thai Kitchen appears to be vegan), but most versions you will find will have in them fish sauce or shrimp paste. I make my own and I have a great Thai Red Curry Paste recipe on my DIY Spice Mixes page that you can try. It makes enough for about three uses, so you can use some for this recipe and freeze the rest for another time when a red curry craving hits you. I made up for the missing ingredients in the massaman paste by adding these separately to the pot as I cooked the curry, ensuring I wasn’t deprived of any of the flavor of an authentic curry.
Serving suggestions
With plain steamed basmati rice. Serve with a vegetable stir-fry on the side. My favorites are this broccoli stir-fry and this shredded Brussels sprouts stir-fry.
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