Half-Day Organic Farm Thai Cooking Class – 5 Dish Categories
A morning cooking class on an organic farm outside Chiang Mai: market stop, herb picking and five dish categories including your own curry paste, finished by 14:30.
- Duration
- Half day (08:00–14:30)
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Max group
- 20 pax
The half day is the sweet spot for most travellers: everything that makes a farm cooking class worth the drive — the market, the garden, your own curry paste, your own wok — compressed into a morning that has you back in town by early afternoon with the rest of the day intact.
Pick-up is between 08:00 and 08:30, with a stop at a local fresh market on the way out of the city. Your instructor uses the stalls as a classroom: how to tell galangal from ginger, which chilli gives heat and which gives fragrance, what shrimp paste and palm sugar actually do, and what you can realistically substitute in a supermarket at home. Then it is about forty-five minutes into the countryside to a working organic farm.
In the garden you walk the beds, taste herbs straight off the plant and pick what you need. At your own station you then cook five categories: curry paste, curry, a stir-fry, a soup and spring rolls. Pounding the paste is the part people photograph and the part they repeat at home — raw lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime and chilli becoming, twenty minutes later, the green or khao soi curry in front of you. Everything is eaten as it comes off the heat, with coffee, tea and water throughout, and any leftovers are boxed for you.
You are back at your hotel by mid-afternoon with a recipe e-book on the way and an online photo album to follow. Every dish can be made vegetarian or vegan, mild or properly Thai-hot, and non-cooking companions are welcome for a 400 THB visitor charge.
- Back in town by mid-afternoon — a full farm experience in half a day
- Working organic farm about 45 minutes from the Old City
- Guided fresh-market stop on the way out
- Pick and taste herbs straight from the garden
- Five categories: curry paste, curry, stir-fry, soup and spring rolls
- Pound your own curry paste and cook with it the same morning
- Your own individual cooking station
- Vegetarian and vegan versions of every dish; spice level your choice
- Take-away boxes, recipe e-book and online photo album included
What's included
- ✓ Return hotel transfer within a 3 km radius of the Chiang Mai Old City
- ✓ Guided visit to a local fresh market
- ✓ Guided tour of the organic farm and herb tasting from the garden
- ✓ All ingredients for the class
- ✓ Your own individual cooking station
- ✓ English-speaking cooking instructor
- ✓ Step-by-step recipe e-book
- ✓ Drinking water, coffee and tea
- ✓ Everything you cook — eat on site or take it away
- ✓ Online photo album after the class
- Hotel pick-up beyond the 3 km radius of the Old City (ask us for a quote)
- Alcoholic drinks
- Non-cooking companions (visitor charge applies)
- Gratuities
- Travel insurance
- 08:00
Hotel pick-up
Collected between 08:00 and 08:30 from hotels within 3 km of the Old City.
- 08:45
Fresh market tour
A guided walk through a local market to meet the herbs, pastes and produce of northern Thai cooking.
- 09:30
Drive to the organic farm
Around 45 minutes into the countryside.
- 10:15
Farm tour and herb picking
Walk the organic beds, taste as you go and harvest what your dishes need.
- 10:45
Curry paste and spring rolls
Pound your chosen curry paste in a stone mortar, then roll and fry your own spring rolls.
- 11:45
Soup and stir-fry
A soup and a wok dish at your own station, eaten as you finish them.
- 12:45
Curry and lunch
Cook a full curry from your own paste and sit down to everything you have made.
- 13:30
Boxing up and photos
Leftovers boxed, group photos for the online album, recipe e-book confirmed.
- 14:00
Return transfer
Dropped back at your hotel by around 14:30.
Yes. Every dish on the menu can be prepared vegetarian or vegan — tofu and vegetables replace the chicken, prawn and pork, and the fish sauce and shrimp paste are swapped for soy-based alternatives. Tell us when you book so the kitchen can shop accordingly, and mention any allergy (nuts and shellfish are the usual ones) again to your instructor on the day.
You choose. The menu is organised into categories and you pick one dish from each, so nobody at the same table has to cook the same lunch. You can also decide how hot each dish is — Thai-hot, mild or no chilli at all.
Return transfer is included for hotels within a 3 km radius of the Chiang Mai Old City. The farm is about 45 minutes away in the countryside, with a short stop at a local market on the way out.
The half day covers five categories — curry paste, curry, stir-fry, soup and spring rolls. The full day adds a Thai salad, a dessert and a Thai herbal drink, and gives you longer at the market and in the garden.
Light, comfortable clothes you do not mind getting a little splashed, and closed shoes rather than flip-flops — you will be standing at a wok and walking through a market and a garden. Aprons are provided. Long hair is easier tied back.
Yes — that is one of the nicest details of this school. Everything you cook is yours, boxed up if you would rather eat it later at your hotel.
Yes, and Thai cooking classes are one of the best family activities in Chiang Mai. Younger children usually share a station with a parent rather than working a hot wok alone. Tell us the ages when you book so we can arrange the right set-up.