I have cooked every Gordon Ramsay curry recipe on this list, and it runs in the order I wish someone had given me: by how you actually learn to cook curry. Start simple, get confident, then go deep.
Most are his own recipes, verified against the exact book or video they came from. A few he never wrote, and those pages say so openly, built from his real techniques instead of pretending.
Every entry links to my full tested article with the recipe card, his quotes, and the mistakes I made first. The table below is the fast way to pick tonight’s.
| Curry | Difficulty | Total time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken Curry | Easy | 25 min | Your first one, weeknights |
| Butter Chicken | Easy | 25 min | Beating the takeaway |
| Chicken Tikka Masala | Easy | 30 min | Feeding doubters |
| Chicken Korma | Medium | 1 hr 40 | Rich weekends, mild heat |
| Chicken Madras | Easy | 45 min | Heat lovers |
| Chicken Biryani | Medium | 1 hr 10 | Dinner party centrepiece |
| Lamb Curry | Easy | 35 min | Midweek mince |
| Spicy Beef Curry | Medium | 4 hr | Sunday slow cooking |
| Goat Curry | Medium | 4 hr 25 | A weekend project |
| Thai Green Curry Rice | Easy | 12 min | The fastest bowl here |
| Thai Red Curry | Medium | 1 hr | Date night |
| Malaysian Chicken Curry | Easy | 1 hr 15 | Fresh-paste weekends |
| Massaman Curry | Medium | 2 hr 25 | The coldest nights |
| Fish Curry | Easy | 45 min | Light dinners |
| Prawn Curry | Easy | 25 min | Fast seafood |
| Pork Neck Curry | Medium | 1 hr 35 | Something different |
| Turkey Curry | Easy | 35 min | Boxing Day |
| Vegetable Curry | Easy | 30 min | Meat-free Monday |
| Lentil Curry | Easy | 55 min | Batch cooking |
| Meatballs in Coconut Broth | Easy | 35 min | The wildcard finish |
1. Chicken Curry
If you make one curry from this list, make this one. Grated butternut squash and onion melt into the sauce and thicken it without flour or cream, and the whole thing is done in 15 minutes.
Serves 4. Prep 10 min, cook 15 min, 350 kcal.
2. Butter Chicken
Once I had the chicken curry down, this was the natural next step: same speed but more richness with a yoghurt marinade and a sauce finished with butter and cream. Ramsay built it on Next Level Kitchen in under 15 minutes.
Serves 4. Prep 10 min, cook 15 min, 480 kcal.
3. Chicken Tikka Masala
The first time I felt like I was actually cooking, not just following steps. Ramsay blends the sauce completely smooth before the chicken goes back in, and that one move is why it tastes like a restaurant made it.
Serves 4. Prep 10 min, cook 20 min, 340 kcal.
4. Chicken Korma
I put off making korma because I thought it was just a mild curry for people who do not like curry. Then I tried Ramsay’s version with blended cashew paste and I understood: korma is not mild, it is subtle.
Serves 4. Prep 25 min, cook 75 min, 930 kcal.
5. Chicken Madras
The one he never actually wrote, and my page says so. I built it from his real habits instead: his paste dose, his onion timing, his lemon finish. It cured me of ordering takeaway madras.
Serves 4. Prep 10 min, cook 35 min, 480 kcal.
6. Chicken Biryani
Easier than its reputation, because Ramsay refuses to layer. The chicken cooks through in its spiced yoghurt before the raisin-studded rice ever meets it, so nothing is left to luck under a sealed lid.
Serves 4. Prep 25 min, cook 45 min, 645 kcal.
7. Lamb Curry
After that run of chicken curries I needed a break from poultry, and Ramsay’s minced lamb with potatoes and peas in a spiced tomato sauce takes just 30 minutes. From his Quick and Delicious cookbook.
Serves 4. Prep 10 min, cook 25 min, 580 kcal.
8. Spicy Beef Curry
The slow one: three and a half hours of simmering until the beef gives up and the sauce is thick enough to stand a spoon in. I make this on Sundays when I have nowhere to be and the house needs to smell like something is happening.
Serves 5. Prep 30 min, cook 3.5 hours, 475 kcal.
9. Goat Curry
Same patience as the beef curry but a completely different depth, with bone-in goat and whole spices for three hours. I was intimidated by goat until I realised the bones do most of the work.
Serves 4. Prep 25 min, cook 4 hours, 500 kcal.
10. Thai Green Curry Rice
A sharp left turn from Indian into Thai, where Ramsay fries homemade green curry paste with day-old rice in a wok. Not a soup-style curry: fragrant fried rice that eats like curry in under 15 minutes.
Serves 4. Prep 5 min, cook 7 min, 195 kcal.
11. Thai Red Curry
I assumed chicken, but Ramsay uses duck with crispy skin over a coconut sauce made from scratch red curry paste in the Great Escape book. It taught me that Thai curries are a completely different discipline from Indian ones.
Serves 4. Prep 30 min, cook 30 min, 750 kcal.
12. Malaysian Chicken Curry
Somewhere between Thai and Indian: a fresh spice paste of lemongrass, ginger, and shallots simmered in coconut milk with kaffir lime leaves and cinnamon. The kind of curry that makes the kitchen smell incredible for hours.
Serves 4. Prep 15 min, cook 45 min, 560 kcal.
13. Massaman Curry
The richest Thai curry on this list: slow-cooked beef chuck with potatoes, roasted peanuts, tamarind, and fish sauce in coconut milk. I nearly skipped this one because I could not find an official Ramsay recipe, but his technique applied to the traditional method worked perfectly.
Serves 4. Prep 25 min, cook 2 hours, 950 kcal.
14. Fish Curry
A lighter change of pace after all that beef and goat. Southern Indian style with tamarind, mustard seeds, and white fish that cooks in the sauce for just 3-4 minutes at the end so it stays flaky.
Serves 6. Prep 15 min, cook 30 min, 342 kcal.
15. Prawn Curry
Bengali-style, and the marinating step is what separates this from just dumping prawns into sauce. Turmeric and salt on the prawns first, then into a coconut sauce with green chillies.
Serves 4. Prep 10 min, cook 15 min, 310 kcal.
16. Pork Neck Curry
The oddest pairing on this list: slow-simmered pork neck in coconut lemongrass sauce, topped with fresh mango salsa from the Ultimate Cookery Course. I did not think mango belonged on a curry until I tried it.
Serves 4-6. Prep 20 min, cook 75 min, 770 kcal.
17. Turkey Curry
The Boxing Day rescue: leftover Christmas turkey in a coconut and lemongrass curry, on the table in about 35 minutes. If you are tired of cold turkey sandwiches by December 27th, this is the one.
Serves 4. Prep 15 min, cook 20 min, 490 kcal.
18. Vegetable Curry
The fastest proper Gordon Ramsay Indian curry on this list: Madras paste, celeriac, cauliflower, broccoli, and courgette (zucchini) in one pan finished with Greek yoghurt. 240 calories and five of your five-a-day.
Serves 4. Prep 15 min, cook 15 min, 240 kcal.
19. Lentil Curry
His take on Rajasthan’s dal baati, credited by name in his India book. The whole spices simmer in the water with the lentils from cold, then double cream and slit green chillies finish it.
Serves 4. Prep 10 min, cook 45 min, 330 kcal.
20. Meatballs in Coconut Broth
The wildcard: beef meatballs in a fragrant coconut broth with lemongrass, cardamom, and lime, more like a Thai soup than a heavy curry. From Ramsay’s Home Cooking book.
Serves 2-4. Prep 15 min, cook 20 min, 480 kcal.
Which curry for which night?
For a weeknight with no plan, the chicken curry, thai green rice or prawn curry all land inside half an hour. For a dinner party, the biryani is the centrepiece and the duck thai red is the show-off, and both do most of their work before guests arrive.
Winter belongs to the slow three: beef, goat and massaman, hours of gentle simmering each. Boxing Day has its own entry in the turkey curry. Summer eating leans on the fish, prawn and vegetable pages, the three lightest pots here.
FAQs
Does Gordon Ramsay have a katsu curry recipe?
No. I checked all 22 of his books, and the only katsu he has ever published is a tuna katsu sandwich, breaded fish in bread, no curry sauce in sight. Any page claiming his katsu curry invented it.
If crispy chicken in a smooth sauce is the craving, the closest real thing on this list is his butter chicken above, pan-roasted chicken folded into a sauce blended until velvety.
What about a chicken jalfrezi?
Also never published, in any book or video. Jalfrezi is a curry-house invention he simply hasn’t covered, and I’d rather tell you that than fake one.
The nearest match for jalfrezi’s heat and tomato-heavy profile is the madras higher up this list, built openly from his real techniques.
Which curry should I start with?
The butternut squash chicken curry at number one, and that’s why it’s number one: a box grater does the prep, one pan does the work, and dinner lands inside half an hour.
From there, korma is the gentlest, madras is the hottest of the everyday ones, and biryani is the weekend project with the biggest payoff. The list runs roughly in the order I’d cook them.
