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Coconut Chicken Curry in the Crockpot

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This delicious Coconut Chicken Curry has a creamy coconut milk base, tender chicken, and savory veggies, all cooked right in your crockpot for a super easy dinner!

crockpot coconut chicken currycoconut chicken curry in the crockpot

Coconut Chicken Curry

We love curry at our house.  There is something about the sweet flavor with a little spice, yummy veggies over warm brown rice that says comfort food to me.  All of my kids love it too!  It has a rich flavor with familiar ingredients which is appealing even to picky eaters!  

This recipe is perfect for those days when you don’t have a lot of time, but want to come home to a really great meal.  I put my ingredients in the crockpot at 2:00pm, didn’t get home until 5:40pm and we were eating by 6:00pm!!  I used my rice cooker to cook up brown rice, and it turned out perfect in just 20 minutes. We paired this with fresh pineapple and steamed pea pods for a super yummy, healthy and balanced meal.

coconut chicken curry with rice in a blue bowl

How to Make Coconut Chicken Curry in the Crockpot

This recipe is easy and doesn’t take long using your crockpot. If you are in a real hurry, I also have Instant Pot instructions for you 🙂

  1. Peel and chop veggies and chicken. Chop onion, carrots and chicken into small uniform pieces. Mince garlic, and chop bell peppers into cubes or strips. Add everything to your slow curry with the veggies on bottom and chicken next.
  2. Make the sauce. In a medium bowl, whisk together tomato paste, coconut milk, salt, pepper, curry powder, and garam masala. Pour sauce over chicken and veggies, place lid on slow cooker.
  3. Cook. Cook on high for 3 -4 hours (or on low for 5-6 hours) until veggies are tender and chicken is no longer pink.
  4. About 1/2 hour before serving, cook rice according to the package directions.
  5. Serve curry over brown or white rice.
coconut chicken curry with vegetables in a crockpot

Instant Pot Instructions for Coconut Chicken Curry

  1. Peel and chop veggies and chicken. Chop onion, carrots and chicken into small uniform pieces. Mince garlic, and chop bell peppers into cubes or strips. Turn your Instant Pot to saute mode and add a couple of teaspoons of oil. Add your veggies to the pot and saute for a few minutes until the veggies begin to soften.
  2. Add the chicken, stir to combine and saute for 2 more minutes.
  3. Make the sauce. In a medium bowl, whisk together tomato paste, coconut milk, salt, pepper, curry powder, and garam masala. Pour sauce over chicken and veggies, place the lid on your Instant Pot.
  4. Cook. Set to manual, high pressure for 4 minutes. Once the Instant Pot has completed the 4 minutes, let it natural pressure release for 10 minutes. Let remaining pressure out and carefully open the lid.
  5. Give the curry a stir, and then serve or warm rice.

Tips and Variations for making Delicious Coconut Chicken Curry

  • To save time, you can buy pre-trimmed chicken stew meat from your butcher.  It is already cut into bite-size pieces and so no prep required!
  • Don’t open the crockpot while it is cooking.  Every time you open the lid, it loses a lot of heat and will increase cooking time.
  • Put the veggies on the bottom.  Layer in this order: Carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, peppers.  This helps the veggies that take longer cook all the way through.
  • If you want to add more spice you can do a couple of things: 1) Add more curry powder 2) Chop a few jalapenos with the seeds and add to the veggie mix.
  • You can find Garam Masala by the spices at most grocery stores. If you can’t find it, you can make your own by mixing cumin + allspice. 1 part cumin to 1/4 part allspice. Garam Masala is warm with hints of cinnamon, cloves and peppercorns.
  • Vegetarian Option – instead of chicken, add chickpeas with the vegetable mix. Also, cauliflower is a great option for a heartier bite.
closeup photo of coconut chicken curry with carrots, bell peppers served with rice in a blue bowl

What Other Veggies Can I Add To Coconut Curry?

Curry goes well with lots of veggies! This recipe calls for carrots, onions, and bell peppers. Other veggies that would be good are:

  • Green peas
  • Potatoes
  • Cauliflower
  • Pumpkin, butternut squash, or sweet potato cubes
  • Broccoli
  • Bamboo shoots
  • Mushrooms

We love introducing our kids to new flavors and help them develop the ability to try new foods.  This Coconut Chicken Curry recipe is a great way to introduce them to different flavors, while still having familiar elements.

We hope you enjoy!

More Favorite Curry Dinners

coconut chicken curry with coconut milk
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3.9 from 86 votes

Coconut Chicken Curry

This delicious Coconut Chicken Curry has a creamy coconut milk base, tender chicken, and savory veggies, all cooked right in your crockpot (or Instant Pot) for a super easy dinner!
Prep Time15 minutes
Cook Time4 hours
Total Time4 hours 15 minutes
Course: dinner
Cuisine: Thai
Servings: 8 Servings
Calories: 279kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

Crockpot Instructions

  • Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a saute pan over medium high heat. Dice onion and add to your pan with the minced garlic. Saute until the onions have softened, 3-4 minutes. Chop carrots, sweet potato and bell peppers into small uniform pieces. Cut chicken into bite sized cubes. Add everything to your crockpot with the veggies on bottom and chicken next.
  • In a medium bowl, whisk together tomato paste, coconut milk, salt, pepper, curry powder, garam masala and brown sugar. Pour the sauce over chicken and veggies and put the lid on your crockpot.
  • Cook on high for 3 -4 hours (or on low for 5-6 hours) until veggies are tender and chicken is no longer pink.
  • When curry is done cooking, add lime juice and stir everything together.
  • Serve warm over brown or white rice.

Instant Pot Instructions

  • Chop onions, carrots, sweet potatoes and bell peppers small uniform pieces. Cut chicken into bite sized cubes. Turn your Instant Pot to saute mode and add a couple of teaspoons of oil. Add your veggies and minced garlic to the pot and saute for a few minutes until the veggies begin to soften.
  • Add the chicken, stir to combine and saute for 2 more minutes.
  • In a medium bowl, whisk together tomato paste, coconut milk, salt, pepper, curry powder, garam masala and brown sugar. Pour sauce over chicken and veggies, place the lid on your Instant Pot.
  • Set to manual, high pressure for 4 minutes. Once the Instant Pot has completed the 4 minutes, let it natural pressure release for 10 minutes. Let remaining pressure out and carefully open the lid.
  • Add lime juice and then stir everything together. Serve over warm rice.

Nutrition

Serving: 0.5cup | Calories: 279kcal | Carbohydrates: 11g | Protein: 19g | Fat: 19g | Saturated Fat: 15g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 48mg | Sodium: 588mg | Potassium: 745mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 4291IU | Vitamin C: 48mg | Calcium: 43mg | Iron: 4mg
Keyword : coconut chicken curry

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Natalie Monson

I'm a registered dietitian, mom of 4, avid lover of food and strong promoter of healthy habits. Here you will find lots of delicious recipes full of fruits and veggies, tips for getting your kids to eat better and become intuitive eaters and lots of resources for feeding your family.

Learn More about Natalie

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61 Comments

Thank you! I love making curry and this is a simple recipe I can prep the night before and have done when I get home! Nicole Ziemba, if you look at the link to make your own Garam Masada you can get an idea of the taste and use less of any flavors you don’t like!

Thanks for the recipe! Do you have any suggestions for a bell pepper substitute? I can’t eat them.

Thank you for the recipe. We tried it and it wasn’t quite what we expected. The coconut milk all cooked out and so it was very tomatoey. Next time I think I might try just baking it in the over and adding the sauce as last minute as possible so it stays creamy. I tasted the sauce before I added it and it was fantastic! It would have been great had all the milk not cooked out.

I love eggplants in curry sauce and sweet potatoes in small chunks would be wonderful in this too. A nice versatile recipe that could use different proteins to keep it from being boring. Very nice.

I agree the coconut milk taste disappears and the sauce is amazing when fresh. I feel it is the peppers that take over. We didn’t care for it but I want to make it with no peppers.

Thank you for this easy recipe! It’s a nice basic from which to customize for my family. It’s in the crock now, minus peppers and onions, with what I had left in the jar of tomato sauce and homemade graham masala. Oh and chicken drumsticks! So a hodgepodge of substitutions but it smells lovely! We need the spice today since mom and dad have a mega head cold.

Finally tried this recipe! So easy and delicious. Made my own garam masala mix. Recipe was a little bland for my husband so just added some hot sauce.

This was good, but needed a little something more at the end, so I added a spoonful of honey. It brightened it up a bit and everyone enjoyed it at my house. I also did not taste much coconut, though the sauce was a fine texture.

I made this today since my husband loves Indian food so much and I have only had a handful of times. I took the advice of adding a jalapeno and double the curry powder…plus a little extra coconut milk. My husband loves it and thinks it tastes authentic. Thank you for the recipe! I will definitely make again.

4 stars
I made it last night, not slow cooked but speed- cooked it. Kids loved it! I just chopped all up and added in the deep pan – 30 min later it was all ready to serve! We live in France so we don’t have all the ingredients, but I’m used to improvise!

2 stars
Lot of work without much flavor I’m afraid. Would recommend you use chicken thighs rather than breasts.

So excited to try this! What time would you recommend for an Instant Pot conversion? Thanks!

5 stars
Yum! Great recipe idea. I varied it a little …. I added zucchini, and mushroom, hardly any capsicum, and a few cherry tomatoes that needed eating up! Also when I poured the sauce over the ingredients I thought “mmmm that doesn’t look ‘wet’ enough… I think it needs a tin of chopped tomatoes,”so I added one of those too! OMG…. it was Devine!! My 3 kids(4,7&8) had two bowls each!!! Thanks so much for the idea!! ????

Hi Debra, you can add a pinch of cayenne pepper to the whole pot, or add some Sriracha sauce at the table if you like. 🙂

This is absolutely delicious! It is not an all day slow cooker recipe…followed the directions and cooked on low for 4 hours…soooo good!

4 stars
Lovely recipe but I think I needed more heat: I added a hot pepper. I added an extra can of coconut milk and, what I also found was that the veggies were overcooked. For me, the next time I use your recipe [thank you for your recipe, by the way] I will put veggies in for the last twenty minutes to half hour so that they have some crunch. I added dry apricots. They too, should have been added at the very end.

All in all, I love it better on day two! Thank you,

2 stars
I used the same seasonings + 1 tsp grated ginger, 3 cloves garlic, and added cayenne pepper. So bland and not thick enough for my liking. Cooked for 5-6 hrs slow and let it cool for 10-15 prior to eating to allow more thickening, but that didn’t do the trick.

We had this for supper tonight. Very easy and quick to prepare. Smelled and tasted amazing. We found the sauce a bit thin but still good. Do you have any tips to thicken it up a bit? Also, what could be used to make it vegetarian?

Try stirring in a cornstarch slurry at the end to thicken up the sauce. And we like to replace the chicken with chickpeas for a vegetarian option!