Traditional Thai curry sauce recipes incorporate canned coconut milk. While canned coconut is delicious, has great flavors and offers healthy fats, it’s also higher in carbs. Depending on the brand of canned coconut milk, carbs can be as high as 14 per can, which is quite a bit if you’re following a lower carb diet.
The perfect alternative to traditional canned coconut milk is unsweetened coconut milk (from the cold section of your grocery store). The brand So Delicious has an organic option with only 45 calories and less than 1 carb per 8oz serving. Unsweetened coconut milk is the perfect way to cut down on carbs without losing coconut flavors. However, cooking with low calorie coconut milk also means less fat. To compensate for this we’ve upped the amount of coconut oil used in this recipe.
Cooking with low calorie coconut milk comes with another hurdle: sauce texture. Low calorie coconut milk is creamy, but not as creamy as traditional coconut milk, resulting in a both-like texture (which would be great if we were making soup!). To thicken the curry sauce, I incorporated Just Mayo. Unlike regular mayo, Just Mayo does not breakdown when added to sauces, making it the perfect thickening agent. Alternatively, if you’re not a fan of Just Mayo, you could use heavy whipping cream to thicken the curry sauce.
