Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk and Zucchini

This chicken curry with coconut milk recipe features chicken breast slices and zucchini matchsticks sautéed in an easy coconut curry sauce with lime.

An easy coconut curry is one of my favorite go-to recipes. When you have a great curry powder (I love this one from Penzey’s spices), you can mix it with coconut milk and a bit of lime juice and cook just about anything. Vegetables, seafood, chicken, pork, tofu—all are delicious in a coconut curry sauce.

And, coconut curry can be made year-round, using whatever kind of vegetables are in season. In winter, I love to cook potatoes or winter squash in curry. At the beginning of fall though, zucchini is a great option.

When thinly sliced or zoodled, zucchini soaks up the sauce in this Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk and Zucchini recipe, so you get great flavor in every bite. 

Why Make This Recipe

• So delicious: Great combination of flavors, and a fantastic coconut curry sauce.
• Simple curry recipe: authentic curry dishes can be (deliciously) complicated with lots of spices, but there are only 9 ingredients needed for this easy version.
• Versatile: Once you have the technique and the sauce down, you can change up the vegetables depending on what's in season.

🥗 Ingredients

This recipe does include a bit of chopping time, because you want to slice your zucchini quite thinly. But, if you have a vegetable spiralizer, zucchinis take very little time to spiralize. You can even find already spiralized zucchini prepackaged at the grocery store these days. Feel free to take that shortcut if you want to get dinner on the table in a hurry.

And, one of the big advantages of zoodling or slicing your zucchini thinly is that it cooks quickly. No need to wait for big potato chunks to become tender—both the thin chicken slices and zucchini slices cook in just a few minutes. 

🥣 Instructions

First, you’ll want to prep all of your ingredients. Cut each zucchini lengthwise into thin planks (about 5-6 per zucchini). Then cut each plank in half crosswise, and slice into matchsticks. Alternatively, you can use a spiralizer to turn your zucchini into zoodles.

Chop the onion half into small ¼-inch pieces. Halve the lime, and cut one of the halves into wedges. Slice the chicken breasts thinly.   

Heat 1 T. oil in a 12-inch nonstick pan or wok. Sprinkle chicken pieces with salt and pepper and add to hot pan.

Stir into a single layer, and cook over medium-high heat until chicken is lightly browned and cooked through, about 5-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from pan.

To cook zucchini, heat butter in same pan, then add zucchini. Cook, stirring frequently, for 5-7 minutes, until zucchini is tender. (Zoodles and very thin matchsticks may cook faster.)

Remove from pan. Heat 1 T. oil in pan, then add chopped onions. Add curry powder and ½ t. salt and stir for 1 minute, then add chicken broth and coconut milk.

Cook for 6 minutes, until reduced slightly. Add chicken and zucchini back to cream sauce and simmer until heated through.

Add juice from the lime half and stir. Serve with lime wedges. 

What should I serve with this chicken curry recipe?

You’ll want to pair this dish with something that can soak up the creamy sauce. Jasmine rice is a classic match for curry, but I also love this recipe on a bed of quinoa or plain couscous.

Other grains like farro and barley would work as well, or pearl couscous. It’s not remotely authentic to a curry recipe, but I have happily used baguette slices to mop up the leftover sauce and never regretted it. 

Can you freeze Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk?

Yes, but. You can freeze this chicken curry recipe, but coconut milk tends to separate when frozen and then thawed. If you freeze this dish, you may find that the texture is a little grainy when it is thawed and reheated because of the coconut milk.

For that reason, I wouldn’t recommend this as a great freezer meal, though it would probably still taste good if you tried it. In our house, any leftovers are easily eaten within the next 24 hours!

What can I do with leftover coconut milk? 

If you have coconut milk leftover from a recipe, there are plenty of ways to put it to good use. You can of course make more curry with it—try mixing coconut milk with red or green curry paste instead of curry powder, or mixing it with miso.

You can also use it to loosen up an asian peanut butter sauce for satay or peanut noodles. Coconut milk is great in soup as well, or try it in a smoothie for a non-dairy version.

I think my favorite use for leftover coconut milk is just to cook rice though—replace water with however much leftover coconut milk you have when heating liquid for rice. Delicious! 

Do you have to use coconut milk in curry?

You don’t have to use coconut milk for your curry dishes, though I do love its flavor and the creaminess it adds to the sauce. It also serves to cut the heat of the curry powder or paste that you may be using.

But you can replace coconut milk with heavy cream or even with yogurt or creme fraiche. If you have coconut cream and would like to use that instead, just dilute it with a bit of water. And, of course, many traditional curry dishes have no coconut milk or dairy milk at all. 

What vegetables go well with curry?

All sorts of vegetables are delicious in a curry sauce, so you can make curry year-round with the vegetables you have accessible. Some of my favorite ingredients to use are: potatoes, cauliflower, peas, mushrooms, onions, and sweet peppers. Broccoli, carrots, and sweet potatoes are also good choices.

If you are going to use multiple vegetables, keep in mind how long each takes to cook. You may want to cook them separately if they have very different cooking times, or consider chopping vegetables with long cook times into smaller pieces so that they cook faster. 

Other Delicious Dinner Recipes

If you like this recipe, you may want to check out some of my other great dinner recipes, like my Easy Chicken Parmesan Meatballs, my Greek Chicken Kabobs with Yogurt Sauce, my Creamy Orzo Chicken with Red Peppers and Mushrooms, and my Israeli Couscous with Chicken and Vegetables.

And, if you love curry flavors as much as I do, check out this Lamb and Spinach Curry recipe from our friends at Easy Indian Cookbook. This Chicken and Potato Curry from Our Happy Mess is also big on flavor, but easy to make.

More Zucchini Recipes

If you're still looking for other ways to use your zucchini, I've got some other delicious ideas for you! Try this easy side dish of Zucchini and Mushrooms. Or check out some of these:

If you try this recipe, I would love to hear from you! Please rate this recipe and leave a comment below—your feedback is invaluable to me.

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