Curry dishes are prominent features in Thai Cuisine. In Thai cooking, curry paste is not only used to make curry dishes but is also used as an ingredient to give flavour to and to polish the taste of different kinds of dishes. Many Thai housewives are said to be able to cook a different dish using curry paste every day of the year.

In Thailand there are almost as many curry paste recipes as there are cooks. However, there are basically two categories of curry, the coconut milk-based curry and the water-based curry. Sour curry is the typical water-based curry often used in fish dishes. The spicy jungle curry is another delicious water-based curry prepared with vegetable and meat.

Thai coconut milk-based curries include the familiar red, yellow, green, panang and masamam curries commonly found in all menus of Thai restaurants.

The following table shows the ingredients of the coconut milk-based curry pastes. Coconut milk is added during cooking.