Classic Burmese Chicken Curry Recipe (2024)

This classic Burmese chicken curry recipe makes a fragrant gently-spiced curry that is perfumed with turmeric, ginger, garlic, chilli, and lemongrass. A rich curry with a moreish tomato-based gravy and a layer of aromatic oil that’s quickly soaked up by coconut rice, it should be served with zingy salads and a relish or two.

If you could only make one Burmese curry and asked me choose for you from this classic Burmese chicken curry and the Burmese Indian style chicken curry recipe that we recently shared, it would be impossible. I’d have to tell you to make both as they are equally delicious, especially if you’re a lover of Burmese curries.

This classic Burmese chicken curry recipe is another Burmese recipe that I’ve adapted from my favourite Burmese cookbook, Mi Mi Khaing’s Cook and Entertain the Burmese Way, dating to 1978. It’s a delightful little booklet that is as much a historical document as it is a practical cookbook.

Mi Mi Khaing’s Burmese curry recipe is next in our series of recipes from Myanmar intended to draw attention to the tragic situation in the country, because, infuriatingly, events in Myanmar have largely disappeared from the pages of most mainstream news publications.

So far we’ve published recipes for Mi Mi Khaing’s homemade curry powder, the Indian-style Burmese curry I linked to above, Burmese street food-style fried chicken, Burmese coconut rice, Burmese raw cabbage salad, a Shan vermicelli noodle salad and a Shan tomato salad recipe. Older recipes on the site include a Burmese egg curry and ohn no khao swe, one of our favourite soups from Myanmar.

If you’re not aware of the situation in Myanmar, in February a coup d’état ousted the democratically elected government, which inspired anationwide civil disobedience movement, to which the military responded with extraordinary brutality, violence against peaceful protestors, raids on homes and abduction of activists, massacres in the streets, and airstrikes on villages, resulting in thousands of deaths of innocent civilians, including frontline workers.

We’ll soon be publishing a dedicated guide to how to help the people of Myanmar and after we do, we’ll continue to share recipes for our favourite dishes from Myanmar with links to the guide. Until then, we’ll highlight organisations that need your support, such as Myanmar Now. The military regime is targeting journalists and the independent news site desperately needs donations to continue its essential reporting work.

Classic Burmese Chicken Curry Recipe for an Aromatic Tomato Based Curry

Unlike a lot of old cookbooks – not that the 1970s is so long ago – all of the recipes in Mi Mi Khaing’s book work and taste absolutely delicious. I’ve only tweaked recipes when I’ve not been able to find ingredients and if I can’t find them here in Southeast Asia, I’m guessing our readers in North America, Australasia and Europe probably can’t source them either.

I’ve also tweaked this classic Burmese chicken curry recipe a tad for flavour. Mi Mi Khaing’s recipes often result in very gentle versions of dishes we’ve eaten in Myanmar, which we recall being richer and punchier in flavour. Perhaps that’s a result of changing tastes.

The profile of Cambodian cuisine, for instance, is often described by older cooks as being bitter, pungent and sour, and that they were the preferred flavours of their generation. Yet these days, dishes are generally sweeter.

Cambodian cooks tell me that change came about during the late 1970s and 1980s in the refugee camps on the Thai border where Cambodian refugees’ rations included a great deal of sugar.

As far as Mi Mi Khaing’s Burmese chicken curry recipe and other recipes go, I’ve tried to strike a balance between the intended flavour of her recipes and the dishes we’ve eaten on our travels in Myanmar.

If you buy the book and make the recipes exactly as Mi Mi Khaing writes, I’d love to hear from you. I’d love to do the same one day.

Tips to Making this Burmese Chicken Curry Recipe

This Burmese chicken curry recipe is straightforward, we only have a couple of tips, starting with what to cook this curry in.

Firstly, we recommend making this curry in a big round bottomed wok or a Dutch oven.

Serve this Burmese chicken curry with the scrummy Burmese coconut rice we recently shared, with a relish or two (recipes coming).

Refreshing salads also provide that much-needed contrasting texture and flavour that the Burmese love so much, such as the juicy Shan tomato salad and crunchy Burmese raw cabbage salad we recently shared. Links earlier in the post.

Burmese Chicken Curry Recipe

Please do let us know in the comments below if you make this classic Burmese chicken curry recipe as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.

A travel and food writer who has experienced over 70 countries and written for The Guardian, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, National Geographic Traveller, Conde Nast Traveller, Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, DestinAsian, TIME, CNN, The Independent, The Telegraph, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, AFAR, Wanderlust, International Traveller, Get Lost, Four Seasons Magazine, Fah Thai, Sawasdee, and more, as well as authored more than 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, DK, Footprint, Rough Guides, Fodors, Thomas Cook, and AA Guides.