Blue Elephant Cooking School

Cooking Classes Phuket

If you love the exotic looks, smells and tastes of Thai food, take a cooking class in Phuket. Learn how to cook authentic Thai food from a local chef and take home a skill that will benefit you for years to come.

A cooking class makes for a fun morning or afternoon activity for a rainy day or a break from the beach. Make sure to arrive hungry, as you get to eat the food you have cooked.

If you like to try food from the many different cultures in Phuket, take a food tour.

Tom Kha Gai
Chicken coconut soup with galangal

Cooking schools

There are dozens of cooking schools around the island. The class usually starts with a visit a local fresh market. You will then learn how to prepare a starter, several main dishes and a dessert. After the cooking, get to taste what you have prepared.

Visit a local fresh market

Most cooking classes start with a visit to a local fresh market, a fun place with its abundance of colors, smells and sounds. Here you will find a huge variety of herbs, spices, vegetables, seasonal fruits and a wide choice of ready cooked chili pastes.

The instructor will select the best ingredients for the class, after which it is off to the cooking school. If some of the ingredients are not available in your home country, ask the instructor for substitutes.

Grilled chicken satay with peanut sauce

Cooking station

Get your own cooking station with woks and all the utensils needed for the class.

Prepare curry paste or coconut milk

Before starting on the main dishes, learn how to cook curry paste the traditional way with mortar and pestle. Curry paste, which you will cook from scratch, is the basis for many dishes. The Thai cuisine uses several different curry pastes among which are red, phanaeng, yellow, green, jungle and massaman curry paste.

Alternatively, learn how to prepare coconut milk, also used as the basis for several Thai dishes.

Balance of flavors

The main flavors of Thai cuisine are sweet, sour, spicy and salty. Learn how to achieve a balance of flavors so the meal consists of dishes which flavors complement each other, creating a harmonious meal.

Mango sticky rice

Tod Man Plaa (crispy Thai fish cake)
Tom Yam Goong (spicy hot and sour shrimp soup)
Phanaeng Nua (red curry with beef)
Pad Thai (stir fried noodles with prawns)
Gaeng Kali Gai (yellow curry with chicken)
Preaw Waan Plaa (sweet and sour fish)
Kaeng Phed Ped Yang (roast duck in red curry)
Satay Gai (chicken satay)
Yum Som O (pomelo salad)
Plaa Neung Manao (steamed fish with lime and chili)
Krapao Moo (spicy pork and stir fried basil)

Desserts

Some of the most popular desserts are:

Kluay Buad Chee (banana milk in coconut syrup)
Khanom Sod Sai (sticky rice flour with coconut filling)
Mor Kaeng Tua Thong (jasmine cake)
Khao Niao Mamuang (mango sticky rice)
Khanom Tako (Thai jelly with coconut topping)

Fruit carving

Several cooking schools offer fruit carving, a very delicate and intricate craft. Use your creative skills on fruits like watermelons to adorn the dinner table.

A carved watermelon

Classes for all skill levels

There are Thai cooking classes for all culinary skill levels, from absolute beginner to experienced. Classes are given in English.

Half hour to full day class

You can take classes from 30 minutes to learn how to cook one dish to full day classes to master cooking an entire meal with starters, soups, several main dishes and desserts.

Group and private classes

Cooking classes usually have a limited number of students, so the instructor has time to help everyone. Some cooking schools also offer private classes.