The Complete Guide to Making Indian Curries at Home (2024)

“It hits the spot, good and proper,” says Meera Sodha, author of Made in India: Recipes from an Indian Family Kitchenand a student of the curry game.

You can find curries all over the world, from Trinidad to Japan. Recognize them as Indian in origin, and you’ll start to see world history on your plate. First, different regions in India developed their own spins on curries, from Kerala’s fish curries, to the north’s chicken butter masala. As Indians traveled around the world as laborers and traders, starting at the end of the 18th century, they brought their culinary traditions with them. Curries, made with regional ingredients, integrated themselves into local cooking almost everywhere Indians went.

The colonizing Brits adopted many of the culinary traditions of India, and it’s from them that we get the word curry and its broad, delicious definition: “a spiced Indian dish which has a sauce,” according to Sodha.

There may not be hard and fast rules for what defines a curry, but there are some sturdy guidelines for making a tasty one at home. That’s why we askedSodha to lead us through her methods for creating signature “layers of lovely big, bold flavors” and beloved, “generous warmth.” (As a good place to start when mastering these basics, try her delicious"Mum's Chicken Curry.")

• 1. Aromatics

  Photo: Cara Eisenpress

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  Always start with fried onion, ginger, and garlic, says Sodha. “It’s the holy trinity of ingredients. You never want to skimp on cooking these as it’s where a lot of the flavor of Indian curries comes from.” Quantities might seem large: For a pound and a half of meat or fish (to serve four), use at least two onions, two inches worth of ginger root, and four cloves of garlic. Onions can be sliced or chopped, depending on the desired final texture, and they should be cooked in several tablespoons of oil or ghee over medium heat until they are golden, which takes somewhere from 10 to 20 minutes. Once they’re fried, the ginger and garlic go in—you can either mince them finely, or turn them into a paste with a mortar and pestle, or a food processor. Cook those for just a few minutes before moving on with the recipe.

  Want to speed up your future curry cookery? Make like Sodha’s mum and prepare this trinity in large batches, then freeze it in ice cube trays for instant gratification later on.

• 2. Heat

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  “For fresh green heat, I use Indian green chiles,” says Sodha. She calls them “finger chiles,” but in the U.S., you might seem them marked as green Thai birdseye chiles, which have a zingier flavor than their riper, redder variants. Serranos make a good substitute. You can chop up the peppers with the ginger and garlic and add to the curry at the same time as that pair, or simmer pepper halves in your dish as it cooks. For a milder curry, remove the seeds and ribs before mincing.

  Sodha also relies on Kashmiri chili powder, which she uses to taste. “Keep on adding it little by little until the level of heat is just perfect for you,” she says.

  But peppers aren’t the only source of heat, and curries don’t necessarily need to be fiery. “It’s worth remembering that ginger, cinnamon, garlic, black pepper, and cloves all give their own heat too, in case you don’t like chili peppers,” says Sodha.

• 3. Essential spices

  Photo: Cara Eisenpress

  Forget the idea that you need a cabinet’s worth of spices to make Indian food. Sodha numbers the essentials at four: ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, and chili powder. “Indian cooks often say it’s not Indian without turmeric,” she says. “These are the ones my mother would have by the stove.” For infrequent curry cooks, Sodha advises buying good-quality ground spices in small amounts. On the other hand, if you get into a rhythm and start to use them a lot, “it’s worth storing them whole as they will keep their flavor and potency longer.” Invest in a little electric grinder and you can pulverize whole spices in seconds. Be generous with your use of spices: Think 2 teaspoons each of cumin and coriander, a ½ teaspoon of turmeric, and a ½ teaspoon of chili powder to infuse your pot of curry.

  A slightly more extensive pantry could include cinnamon sticks, brown mustard seeds, and a garam masala mix. Here’s what to skip, though: curry paste and powder. “This was largely invented here in England by the British,” says Sodha.

• 4. Sauce

  Photo: Cara Eisenpress

  See Also

  24 Top Indian Spices and How to Use Them

  Turn the aromatics and spices into a sauce with the addition of some or all of these: yogurt, tomatoes, coconut milk, ground nuts, and water. In India, the contents of the sauce relate directly to the availability of an ingredient in that region—there’s coconut in the south, and dairy and tomatoes in the north. If you’re following a recipe, you can match spices and ingredients to a region, but if you’re improvising, use what you like. If you choose yogurt, opt for a full fat variety and dissolve it slowly into your sauce so it doesn’t curdle. You’ll want 1 to 2 cups of liquid in your four-person curry.

• 5. Meat

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  Two pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs is a good standby for your pot of curry. But poultry doesn’t have to be the pinnacle of your curry game. “Like any braise or stew, you can afford to use a cheaper cut of meat like lamb neck, chicken thighs, pork shoulder, or pig cheeks,” says Sodha, “and cook them for longer so that they yield and soften with time.” Once you have your sauce, submerge the meat, bring the whole pot’s worth to a simmer, and cover to finish cooking. For chicken thighs, cook time is a mere 30 minutes; for some of those tougher cuts, plan on stewing for hours, until the meat is tender.

• 6. Fish

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  Fish filets and scallops need spicing that’s “more considered and gentler so as not to overpower the delicate flavor,” says Sodha. For a Kerala-style fish and coconut curry, for example, submerge about 24 ounces of white fish, or even shrimp, in a simple sauce made from coconut milk, simmering for just five minutes, until cooked through.

• 7. Vegetables

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  Many Indian curries use no meat at all. Rather, “humble vegetables are transformed into delicious meals using just a few spices,” says Sodha, naming aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower curry), and Hyderabadi eggplant curry with peanuts, sesame seeds, and coconut as two of her favorites. The formula for vegetable curries is more or less the same as for meat—add your veggies to the aromatics, spices, chilies, and sauce and cook them until tender.

• 8. Condiments

  Photo: Cara Eisenpress

  Chutneys and relishes round out a curry meal. For Sodha, there’s no better condiment than a fierce lime pickle. “Just a little bit will brighten and perk up anything on the plate,” she says. A bowl of yogurt provides a cooldown after a spicy bite; jazz it up with garlic, toasted spices, or grated cucumber to make a raita.

• 9. Sides

  Photo: Cara Eisenpress

  To complete the feast, add carbs. To sop up the sauce, basmati rice (sometimes cooked with ghee or butter, plus spices like cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds, whole cloves, or cardamom pods) should be on the table—you can find Sodha'sbrilliant formula for the perfect basmati rice here. It might share space with a contingent of Indian flatbreads: Sodha says you can make naan at homeeven without a tandoori oven; chapati and paratha are quicker-cooking flatbreads to get into the habit of making. Or, cheat by stopping by a local Indian joint so that their homemade bread can complement your homemade curry.