Organic Farm Thai Cooking Class – Full Course, 6 Dishes
A relaxed full-morning-to-afternoon Thai cooking course on an organic farm 40 minutes outside the Old City: market visit, herb picking and six dishes you choose yourself.
- Duration
- Full day (approx. 6.5 hours, 08:20–15:30)
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Max group
- 20 pax
This is the slow version of a Chiang Mai cooking class. Instead of a kitchen behind a shopfront, you are driven about forty minutes out of the Old City to a working organic garden, where the herbs you are about to cook with are still in the ground and the only soundtrack is birds and the occasional scooter on the lane. It is the class to book if you want the day to feel like an escape as well as a lesson.
The morning starts with a pick-up from your hotel between 08:20 and 08:50 and a stop at a local fresh market. This is not a photo opportunity — your instructor walks you round the stalls and puts names to things you have been eating all week: galangal versus ginger, the three chillies that do completely different jobs, palm sugar, shrimp paste, the difference between a good and a tired bunch of holy basil. By the time you leave you know what to buy and, just as usefully, what to substitute when you get home.
At the farm you walk the garden with a basket, tasting leaves and picking what you need, then take your own station — one person, one wok, one burner, one chopping board. You cook six dishes across six categories: appetiser, stir-fry, soup, curry paste, curry and dessert. The curry paste is the part most people remember: pounding lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime and chilli in a granite mortar until the smell fills the room, then watching that paste become the green curry you eat twenty minutes later. Coffee, herbal drinks and a welcome snack are served throughout, and you eat each course as you finish it rather than facing six plates at the end.
You leave with a cookbook, a phone full of photos and a genuinely useful skill — most guests are cooking at least one of these dishes again within a fortnight of getting home. Return transfer drops you back in the Old City around 15:00–15:30. Children under five join free, and non-cooking companions can come along for a reduced rate.
- Organic garden setting roughly 40 minutes from the Old City — rice fields, herb beds and open-air kitchen
- Guided fresh-market walk with an instructor who explains every ingredient
- Pick and taste your own herbs straight from the garden before you cook
- Six dishes, chosen by you from six categories — no fixed menu
- Make your own curry paste from scratch in a granite mortar
- One person, one wok — your own station, never sharing
- Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free friendly; spice level up to you
- Cookbook to take home, plus complimentary coffee and Thai herbal drinks
- Round-trip hotel transfer included from the Old City
What's included
- ✓ Return transfer from Old City hotels (pick-up 08:20–08:50)
- ✓ Guided visit to a local fresh market
- ✓ Guided walk and herb picking in the organic garden
- ✓ All ingredients for six dishes
- ✓ Your own individual cooking station, wok and utensils
- ✓ English-speaking Thai cooking instructor
- ✓ Welcome snack
- ✓ Fresh coffee (espresso, americano or latte), Thai herbal drinks and drinking water
- ✓ Everything you cook — eaten on site or boxed to take away
- ✓ Recipe cookbook
- Hotel pick-up outside the Old City pick-up zone (ask us for a quote)
- Alcoholic drinks
- Non-cooking companions (500 THB per person, includes the meal)
- Gratuities for your instructor (never expected, always appreciated)
- Travel insurance
- 08:20
Hotel pick-up
Be ready in your hotel lobby between 08:20 and 08:50. Transfer is by air-conditioned van from Old City hotels.
- 09:00
Fresh market walk
Around 30–40 minutes in a local market. Your instructor introduces the core Thai pantry — herbs, pastes, noodles, rices and produce — and explains how to pick, store and substitute each one.
- 09:45
Drive to the farm
Roughly 40 minutes out of town through villages and rice fields to the organic garden.
- 10:30
Garden tour and herb picking
Walk the beds with a basket. Taste, smell and pick lemongrass, kaffir lime, holy basil, Thai eggplant, turmeric and galangal for your own dishes.
- 11:00
Curry paste and appetiser
Take your station. Pound your chosen curry paste in a stone mortar, then cook your appetiser — spring rolls, papaya salad or larb — and eat it straight away.
- 11:45
Stir-fry and soup
Wok work: pad thai, fried rice or holy basil stir-fry, then a soup — tom yum, tom kha or tom sab — built from your own paste and herbs.
- 12:45
Curry and lunch
Turn your paste into a full curry, then sit down and eat everything you have made. Portions are generous; boxes are provided for leftovers.
- 13:45
Dessert
Finish with sticky rice and mango, banana in coconut milk or a steamed Thai sweet, served with herbal tea and coffee.
- 14:30
Cookbook and photos
Receive your recipe book, take group photos in the garden and swap details with your classmates.
- 15:00
Return transfer
Back in the Old City around 15:00–15:30.
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.
Yes — return transfer is included for hotels inside the Chiang Mai Old City pick-up zone. If you are staying further out, in Nimman, along the river or towards the airport, tell us your hotel when you book and we will confirm whether pick-up is possible or arrange a supplement.
Six, plus your own curry paste, all cooked by you at your own station rather than watched from a demonstration bench.
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. A non-cooking companion pays 500 THB, which covers the transfer, the market and garden visits and a full share of the food. Children under five join free.
Almost certainly, and yes. Six dishes is a lot of food. Boxes are provided so you can take whatever you cannot finish back to your hotel.