Keto Crockpot Massaman Curry

Rich, fall-apart beef in a base of coconut milk and fragrant spices. Keto Crockpot Massaman Curry is an exotic comfort food full of spice, a slight sweetness, and a little tang.

Massaman curry is a blend of Indian and Thai influences. Most of the flavor comes from spices found in Indian curries like cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, coriader, cloves, & nutmeg and the aromatics found in Thai curries like lemongrass & galangal.

This is an easy keto Americanized crockpot version. No peanuts, potatoes, galandal, eschalots, tamarind, or dried Asian chillies. You shouldn’t need to go to a specialty Asian store in order to find the ingredients in this recipe. I’ve made suitable substitutions for some of the harder to find ingredients. I’ve also simplified the recipe, and unless you’re an Asian food critic, I doubt you’ll notice any major difference.

For this recipe, I used beef chuck cut into big 3″ chunks. To save yourself some time, I highly recommend the slow cooker liners. Sure makes clean-up so much easier. I also used a carton of beef bone broth I got from my local store. Just be sure to read the ingredients. It shouldn’t have added sugar, cornstarch, etc.

All you have to do is pour the beef bone broth into the crockpot, add the beef chunks, bay leaves, and the outer reedy part of the lemongrass (optional). Set the crockpot to low and cook for 8 hours or high for 4 hours. The beef should be fork tender.

Next step is to make the curry paste. Pretty simple. The hardest part is getting the lemon grass prepped, and that’s easy! Cut off the bottom tough end, then peel off the outer reedy portion of the stalk, leaving the inner soft, pale green part. Chop into small pieces. Save the outer portion to add to the beef while it’s cooking. Dump all the rest of the ingredients for the curry paste into a blender, Magic Bullet, or Ninja. Blend until it forms a paste. Set it a side until you’re ready to make the sauce.

Once the beef is done, it’s time to make the curry sauce. Super simple. Pour the olive oil and the curry paste into a large skillet and cook on medium until most of the liquid is gone. About 5 minutes give or take a few.

Add coconut milk, the reserved beef bone broth, and the star anise. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Add the lime juice, Swerve Brown, and fish sauce. Stir until combined. Add beef chunks and cook for another 5 minutes until sauce thickens.

Serve beef over cauli-rice, with mashed cauli-taters, or just by itself like I did. It’s a star all on it’s own, especially if you’re a ketovore or carnivore like me!

Enjoy!