This easy prawn bhuna curry is a delicious combination of king prawns with aromatic homemade bhuna sauce. Serve over a fluffy basmati and dinner ready in 25 minutes! Packed with loads of flavour and a perfect curry to serve for curry lovers!
If you love quick and easy curry dishes, you will definitely love our family's favourite Lamb Mince Curry and Satay Chicken Curry recipes.
What is Prawn Bhuna?
This recipe is an Indian restaurant-style king prawn curry with a thick aromatic sauce made of onion and tomatoes. Bhuna curries are originated in Bangel, India, and are popular across the UK Indian takeaways and restaurants. Restaurants and home cooking recipes are slightly different. In restaurants, pre-cooked prawns, precooked curry sauce base, spices, and herbs are used to make the Bhuna prawn curry sauce. But at home, we usually cook the curry sauce right away.
What do we need
To make an authentic prawn bhuna recipe at home, you will need a few basic spices, fresh onion, garlic, tomatoes, coriander, and of course fresh king prawns! It takes only 30 minutes to cook everything from scratch and you don't need to use any pre-cooked curry base.
Detailed measurements can be found on the recipe card, at the bottom of the page.
- Prawns - You can use regular prawns, shrimp, king prawns, jumbo prawns, or tiger prawns for this recipe. Make sure prawns are peeled and deveined. If you are using frozen prawns, defrost/thaw the prawns before cooking to keep it juicy and prevent it from overcook.
- Prawn variations - Fish fillets, squid, boneless chicken thigh or breast can be also used. Hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, paneer, or firm tofu goes well with this bhuna sauce too.
- Shallots - Shallot onions are ideal for cooking curry. If you cannot get shallot, use regular brown onions, baby onions, or red onions available. Make sure you chop the onions very fine and same sizes, so they will be cooked evenly.
- Curry powder - You can use any mild/hot Indian curry powder according to your taste. We usually use Indian mild Madras curry powder for this recipe. If you prefer a more strong pungent curry flavour, you can add garam masala instead of curry powder.
- Coriander powder and turmeric - are must have spices if you love bangladesh and style curries.
- Chilli powder - Chilli powder brings both colour and flavour to the dish. Spiciness can be adjusted by adding more or less chilli powder. Or you can add paprika powder instead of chilli powder if you prefer the mild curry flavour.
- Water - Bhuna curry do not contain lots of water. But you can always adjust the sauce consistency to your preference when you make it at home.
How to make it
- Heat the pan into medium heat, drizzle 3 tablespoons of oil and saute the onions are 2-3 minutes until soft. Then add the garlic and stir for another 2-3 minutes until the onions are light brown.
- Next, add the chopped tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes are reduced and colour changed. ( It usually takes about 3-4 minutes to soften and reduce the tomatoes. ) Then add the tomato puree and follow with the spices, turmeric, chilli powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, and salt. Stir it well for few seconds. Pour the water in, and bring it to simmer.
- Then add the king prawns and cook for another 3-4 minutes and follow with the bell peppers. Cook until the prawns and peppers are cooked through.
- Make a taste test and add more salt or water according to adjust.
- Turn off the heat and sprinkle chopped coriander. Transfer to serving plate and serve immediately with plain rice, naan, or chapati.
Cooking Tip
- Don't be stingy with cooking oil when you cook curry. To perfectly saute and caramalize the onions and tomatoes, you need to a good amount of oil.
- Use the shallot onions which is less in moisture. If you saute the shallots thoroughly until crisp and slightly brown, you will achieve a good curry.
- If you love prawn bhuna with extra sauce, double the amount of all ingredients including spices, except the prawns.
- How to make super smooth curry sauce? Once you have sauteed the onions, tomatoes and spices blend it with heat resistant blender, before adding prawns.
FAQ
Prawn bhuna curry sauce is thicker, drier, and spicer than regular prawn curry. Turmeric, coriander powder, curry powder, green chilli and loads of onions are must add ingredients for bhuna prawns.
Recommend to use fresh prawns for prawn curry recipes. Bhuna prawn curry is a perfect combination of aromatic curry gravy and the sweetness of fresh prawns. If you are using cooked prawns, make sure not to overcook them.
Ideal to serve with plain basmati rice, pulao rice, plain naan, garlic naan, chapati, or your choice of flatbread. You can also pair it with bhaji, samosa, kebab, onion salad, or lentil soup and make it a wholesome curry night!
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📖 Recipe
Prawn Bhuna Recipe
Ingredients
- 400 g King prawns About 14oz, peeled and deveined
- 1 Green Pepper Cut small squares
- 3-4 Shallot onions Finely chopped
- 4 cloves Garlic Grated or finely chopped
- 3-4 Tomatoes Ripen vine tomatoes, finely chopped
- 2 tsp Tomato puree Tomato paste or concentrate
- 2-3 Green chilli Cut thin slices
- 3 tbsp Cooking oil Vegetable or neutral flavour oil
- 1 tsp Salt
- handful Coriander Roughly chopped
- 1 cup Water
Spices
- 1½ tsp Chilli powder Or paprika powder ( see details in note )
- ½ tsp Turmeric
- 1 tsp Curry powder Mild/hot Indian curry powder ( see details in note )
- ½ tsp Coriander powder
- ¼ tsp Cumin powder
Instructions
- Heat the pan into medium heat, drizzle 3 tablespoons of oil and saute the onions are 2-3 minutes until soft. Then add the garlic and stir for another 2-3 minutes until the onions are light brown.
- Next, add the chopped tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes are reduced and colour changed. ( It usually takes about 3-4 minutes to soften and reduce the tomatoes. ) Then add the tomato puree and follow with the spices, turmeric, chilli powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, and salt. Stir it well for few seconds.
- Pour the water in, and bring it to simmer. Then add the king prawns and cook for another 3-4 minutes and follow with the bell peppers. Cook until the prawns and peppers are cooked through.
- Make a taste test and add more salt or water according to your preference.
- Turn off the heat and sprinkle chopped coriander. Transfer to serving plate and serve immediately with plain rice, naan, or chapati.
Notes
- Prawns - You can use regular prawns, shrimp, king prawns, jumbo prawns, or tiger prawns for this recipe. Make sure prawns are peeled and deveined.
- Instead of prawns - Fish fillets, squid, boneless chicken thigh or breast can be also used. Hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, paneer, or firm tofu goes well with this bhuna sauce too.
- Shallots - Shallot onions are ideal for cooking curry. If you cannot get shallot, use regular brown onions, baby onions, or red onions available.
- Curry powder - We usually use Indian mild Madras curry powder for this recipe. You can use any mild/hot Indian curry powder according to your preference. If you prefer a more strong pungent curry flavour, you can add garam masala instead of curry powder.
- Chilli powder - Chilli powder brings both colour and flavour to the dish. Spiciness can be adjusted by adding more or less chilli powder. Or you can add paprika powder instead of chilli powder if you prefer the mild curry flavour.
- Water - Bhuna curry is usually is prawns or meat cooked in a thick sauce and do not contain lots of water. But you can always adjust the sauce consistency to your preference when you make it at home.
- Can you make it ahead? Yes, this recipe can be prepared ahead, and also fridge and freezer friendly. Once the curry is cooked, allow it to cool, store it in an air-tight container. Keep in fridge or freezer for later use. It usually lasts in the fridge for a couple of days and in the freezer for a couple of months.
- How to reheat it? Add a splash of water and stir it well if the sauce is too thick. Then simply reheat it over the stovetop or in the microwave until piping hot. Add extra chopped spring onions and green chilli just before serving.
Adrian Sales says
This has to be the best curry I have made so far, so simple and yet full of flavour. Going to try it with chicken next. Thanks for all your great recipes, not had a failure yet!!
Stephen Dockery says
Great recipe
Easy to do and delicious
Bee says
Prawn bhuna is one of my favourite takeaways. I decided to make it myself based on your recipe above. Wow! I was shocked. It tasted exactly as the one in Indian restaurants. Probably better. Thanks Khin. I'll try out some of your other recipes in due course.
Khin says
So happy to hear it, Bee. Hope you enjoy other recipes too. Thanks for taking the time and sharing feedback.
Leigh Harrison Eintoft says
a lovely easy recipe. it was as tasty and authenic as the restaurant version. i’ll definitely be repeating it. thank you! 🙏
Khin says
So glad that you enjoyed this recipe, Leigh. Thanks for trying it out and leaving comments.
Nazma says
You are really amazing cook my dear. Very good instructions.
Khin says
Thank you Nazma. So glad that you enjoy it.
Jen says
Beautiful recipe! Will be going into our regular recipe list as it was so tasty and quick to pull together.
My partner's fave curry is Prawn Bhuna, and they were mind blown that I could knock this together in 20 minutes. I found this recipe and realised we had everything in except fresh tomatoes. I bet fresh is better, but I subbed in a can of good chopped tomatoes and it was great. I blended half the onion and tomato mix, so we had a little texture in a smooth sauce which we thought was spot on.
As good as our local takeaway, good spice levels and just lovely on a heap of fluffy white rice.
Thanks so much for sharing 😊 X