Chicken Curry Laksa

By Lara Lee

Updated March 4, 2025

Chicken Curry Laksa
Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Total Time
1 hour
Prep Time
25 minutes
Cook Time
35 minutes
Rating
4(94)
Comments
Read comments

While chicken curry laksa is a popular restaurant dish across Southeast Asia, making it at home is entirely doable. It’s as simple as blending a spice paste, cooking it off and poaching some chicken thighs. It gets its complexity from rempah, a fragrant spice paste made with ingredients such as lemongrass and galangal (which can be swapped for ginger). This recipe calls for making your own rempah, but to save time, you can buy a good-quality paste and enhance it with fresh lemongrass, ginger and garlic (see Tip 2). The coconut milk-based broth is spicy, savory and rich, but not heavy, based on the curry laksa found at hawker centers in Malaysia and Singapore. The flavor improves over time, so it’s a dish worth making in advance.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings 

    For the Chicken

    • 1pound chicken thighs, skin-on and bone-in
    • 1(½-inch) piece ginger, unpeeled, bruised and sliced into 5 pieces
    • 3lemongrass stalks, woody and dark green parts only (white parts reserved for the paste) 
    • 6cups unsalted chicken stock (see Tip 1)

    For the Laksa Paste (if Using Store-bought Paste, See Tip 2)

    • 6 to 10dried chiles, such as tianjin, Sichuan er jing tiao or chile de arbol, soaked in boiling water
    • ⅓ cup dried shrimp, soaked in ½ cup boiling water (See Tip 3)
    • 6 to 10garlic cloves, peeled
    • 1ounce candlenuts, or macadamia, cashew or Brazil nuts
    • 2 to 3medium shallots, peeled, roughly chopped
    • 3lemongrass stalks, white parts only, roughly chopped (reserved from above)
    • 1(4-inch) piece ginger, peeled and sliced 
    • 1(3-inch) piece fresh turmeric root, peeled
    • 4teaspoons belacan or terasi (optional) (see Tip 3)
    • 1tablespoon table salt
    • ½ cup peanut oil, or neutral oil
    • 1tablespoon ground coriander
    • 1tablespoon ground cumin
    • 3tablespoons Thai or Vietnamese tamarind paste (see Tip 4)
    • 2½ teaspoons sugar

    For the Soup

    • One 14-ounce can full-fat coconut milk
    • ½ pound raw peeled jumbo shrimp or king prawns, tails on
    • 6fried tofu puffs, halved or quartered
    • 14ounces fresh Hokkien egg noodles (see Tip 5)
    • 2ounces dried rice vermicelli noodles
    • 3½ ounces fresh bean sprouts

    For Serving

    • Store-bought crispy shallots
    • Vietnamese mint (laksa leaves) or a combination of mint and cilantro leaves
    • Sambal belacan, sambal nasi lemak or sambal oelek 
    • Lime wedges
Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Poach the chicken: Place the chicken thighs, ginger slices, bruised lemongrass and chicken stock in a large saucepan. Cover with a lid and bring to a simmer. Adjust the lid to allow some steam to escape, and reduce the heat to low so the stock is barely simmering. Cook for 10 minutes, then remove from the heat and leave submerged for an additional 10 minutes. Remove the chicken, set aside to cool slightly, and discard the aromatics. Reserve the stock. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and bones and roughly shred the chicken into large pieces and strips. Set aside.

  2. Step 2

    While the chicken cooks, make the paste. Drain the dried chiles and dried shrimp and discard the water. Combine the dried chilies, dried shrimp, garlic, candlenuts, shallots, lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, belacan and salt in a high-speed blender (or food processor) and blend until smooth, scraping down the sides, if needed.

  3. Step 3

    Heat the oil in a large, wide-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat until the oil begins to shimmer. Add the paste and cook, stirring regularly, for 15 to 20 minutes, until the paste darkens slightly. Add the coriander, cumin, tamarind paste and sugar and stir together, and cook until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes more.

  4. Step 4

    Add the coconut milk and reserved chicken stock to the spice paste and stir together. Bring to a low simmer and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the soup thickens slightly. Add the prawns and tofu puffs, and simmer until just cooked through, about 2 minutes. Taste the soup and season with salt, if needed.

  5. Step 5

    Meanwhile, cook both noodles according to the packet instructions and divide evenly among four large bowls.

  6. Step 6

    Divide the soup, prawns, tofu, chicken and bean sprouts evenly among the bowls. Top with crispy shallots, Vietnamese mint and a little sambal and serve with lime wedges.

Tips
  • If using salted chicken stock, omit the 1 tablespoon salt in the recipe, and season to taste.
  • If using store-bought laksa paste, use one 7-ounce jar, such as Por Kwan brand. Skip Steps 2 and 3. Roughly chop the white parts of 3 lemongrass stalks, 3-inch piece of peeled ginger and 2 garlic cloves. Blitz in a high-speed blender or food processor. Add 1 tablespoon peanut oil (or neutral oil) to a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Add the paste and lemongrass mixture and cook for 5 minutes or until fragrant. Add 1½ tsp ground cumin, 1½ tsp ground coriander, 1 tablespoon Thai or Vietnamese tamarind paste and 1 teaspoon sugar and cook for 1 minute. Proceed with Step 4.
  • Dried shrimp is readily available online and at most Asian supermarkets and is essential to the recipe. Belacan and terasi are Malaysian and Indonesian fermented shrimp pastes. Belacan and terasi can be bought online and at some Asian supermarkets, but can be more difficult to find.
  • Thai and Vietnamese tamarind paste is recommended, instead of more intense Indian variety. If using Indian tamarind paste, season sparingly and to taste.
  • Laksa is often served with both Hokkien (egg) noodles and vermicelli (rice) noodles, but you can replace the Hokkien noodles with vermicelli if you want to cook just one type of noodle.

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FAQS

  1. Laksa is a spicy curry soup popular in Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia and Singapore. Key ingredients are noodles, coconut milk, spice paste and dried shrimp. Toppings vary, but can include shrimp, chicken, fried tofu puffs, bean sprouts and hard-boiled egg.

Ratings

4 out of 5
94 user ratings
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Comments

Nancy

@AZ Rouge can we refrain from referring everyone to Amazon please?? At least for this week when there’s a movement to avoid it for a statement against Bezos?!

AZ Rouge

We fell in love with Laksa when we went to Singapore. It’s much easier to make than this New York Times recipe would lead you to believe. Here is the recipe that I use and it consistently turns out to be phenomenal. https://www.recipetineats.com/laksa-soup/ Definitely use the Por Kwan Laksa paste out of the jar. You can find it in most Asian stores or you can even order it from Amazon. The other ingredients, including the dried shrimp and the tofu puffs can also be found in most Asian stores. I think this New York Times recipe is unfortunate because it will lead people to frustration with how many steps when this really should be something that you can throw together very quickly.

Tim

I thought this was an interesting project and I learned about some new foods and techniques. (One surprise: dried shrimp are refrigerated.) It took me two hours from start to plate and I ended up with a lot of bowls and pots to clean. The result was tasty and filling, if not revelatory. I wouldn't attempt it on a weeknight again. You could certainly get six servings from this.

Rebecca

Been craving stews and hearty soups lately so I journeyed to try this a couple nights back. I never comment on recipes, but I feel I must on this one based on the other comments and my outcome. TLDR: 10/10, filter base? As a frequent eye-roller at those who modify excessively and then rate/comment, I tried to stay true to recipe but ultimately couldn’t in a couple of ways that I detail below. I took a journey to two massive grocery stores to try to get all of the ingredients for this, which was mostly successful (it’s a lot - next time would prep more in advance). Never found galangal, the tamarind paste was more of a liquid, and I found some tasty thick noodles, but I’m sure they’re not the right ones. Other comments mention that this is not traditional to the flavors of Singapore… I cannot I was free-handed with it, and figured between the umami, broth . Also cannot believe anyone could do this in an hour unless they got the paste. I went leisurely but it was closer to 2-3. I did not have the galangal, and I will

Rebecca

I never comment on recipes, but I feel I must based on other comments and my outcome. TLDR: 10/10, filter base? As a frequent eye-roller at those who modify excessively and then comment, I tried to stay true to recipe but ultimately couldn’t in a couple of ways that I detail below. I was mostly successful in obtaining the ingredients (it’s a lot - next time would prep more in advance). Never found galangal, the tamarind paste was more of a liquid, and I found some tasty thick noodles, but I’m sure they’re not the right ones. Others mention that this is not traditional to the flavors of Singapore. I can’t speak to that but it sounded like what I was craving and figured between the umami, broth and coconut milk, I couldn’t be that disappointed. I was free-handed with it, adding a little more lemongrass and ginger than it called for - I love those flavors. Maybe my blender is a POS, but I had to strain out the soup base after cooking the laksa in the broth before adding the meat. The lemongrass would not break down enough so it felt like I was eating fibrous grass in my soup. Also can’t believe anyone could do this in an hour unless they got the paste (2-3 hrs?). In the end, 10/10 one of the best soups I’ve ever made. I will make this for the rest of my life. I will feed it to my future children. Gave my Nigerian partner leftovers and he has messaged me three separate times praising the soup. I don’t know about ‘authenticity’ but this will be a tradition for me from now on.

Sterling

I first tasted this delicious dish in Singapore. I was so excited that I asked the kitchen for their recipe. The ingredients are so special, so unique, and really cannot be substituted. I suggest purchasing Laksa Sauce from an Asian grocery, because we cannot duplicate these marvelous flavors here in the U. S. (I read just now AZ Rouge's comment below, and agree....purchase the sauce/paste, and enjoy!)

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