Thai Farm Cooking School: A Thailand Favorite

Since traveling around Thailand and Cambodia for a month, I’ve shared a number of posts on my
itinerary, things I wish I had done differently, and some of my favorite parts of the trip. Taking a cooking class at Thai Farm Cooking School was such a gem and definitely a highlight of the whole trip. Here’s more info on why we loved our class at Thai Farm Cooking School and what to expect.

The Experience

First, we met our teacher for the day, “Yummy,” and set off for a local food market, where she gave us time to explore before guiding us through the market to share information about the local ingredients we would be using. Next, when we arrived at the farm (Yes, the school is actually on a farm!), Yummy showed us around, teaching us more about the ingredients we’d be cooking with.

A table with a mortar and pestle, cutting board and knife, and other cooking utensils and ingredients — One of the cooking stations for our class at Thai Farm Cooking School.

Soon, we got started cooking! The school definitely made it easy on us by having everything ready with pre-cut veggies and meat and all the cooking utensils we would need. Yummy did a great job of explaining each cooking step, giving us tips to make things easier and telling us ingredients that we could swap out for more common ingredients in the U.S. in case we couldn’t find them after we got back home.

After finishing the food dishes, the staff gave us plenty of time to sit and enjoy our meals and the company of the others in our class.

A plate of Pad Thai with chopsticks — Can you believe I cooked this Pad Thai myself?

The Food

Of course everything we made was incredibly delicious, and as someone who isn’t big into seafood and spice-averse, I appreciated the many food options! We were able to pick the curry paste, curry, soup, and set of entrees and dessert that we would make. We opted to go on a day to make stir fry chicken with basil, Pad Thai fried noodles, and bananas in coconut milk, and I opted to make green curry paste, green curry with chicken, and Tom Koa Chicken (soup). We were so stuffed in the end!

A plate with stir fry chicken and white rice — Stir fry chicken with basil that I cooked at the Thai Farm Cooking School.

After the class ended, the school gave us each our own cookbook so that we could make the recipes again at home. While these recipes certainly would intimidate me had I never cooked them before, taking the class made them feel so much easier!