Cuisine · India

Indian cooking

The biggest pantry in world cooking. Spice blends built from scratch, dal that simmers for an hour, bread cooked directly on flame.

All ⏱Under 30 min ⏱Under 60 min 🥬Vegetarian 🌱Vegan

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🇮🇳IndiaAdvanced

Meat Dishes

Butter Chicken

Murgh makhani — yogurt-marinated chicken thighs seared until charred at the edges, then finished in a silky tomato-and-cashew sauce with butter, cream, and kasuri methi. The dish came out of Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi in the 1950s, apparently by accident: leftover tandoori chicken dropped into a pot of spiced tomato gravy with butter. That origin story is either true or a very good myth, but the result is real. The sauce needs to be blended smooth, the chicken needs actual char on it, and the kasuri methi at the end is not optional if you want the flavor to land.

60 min520 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy💪High protein

★4.8

🇮🇳IndiaMedium

Beverages

Chai Latte

Black tea simmered with whole spices, strained, and finished with hot frothed milk.

20 min180 kcal2 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free

★4.8

🇮🇳IndiaMedium

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Chana Masala

A Punjabi street food staple that became an all-India classic — chickpeas simmered in a thick spiced tomato-onion sauce with cumin, coriander, garam masala, and a squeeze of lime. Vegetarian, cheap, deeply satisfying. Eaten for breakfast with puri, for lunch with rice, and as a street snack.

35 min290 kcal2 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌶️Spicy💪High protein

★4.9

🇮🇳IndiaAdvanced

Cereal and Pasta Dishes

Chicken Biryani

Marinated chicken layered with par-cooked basmati rice, fried onions, saffron milk, and whole spices, then sealed and slow-cooked on low heat so the steam does the work. This is Hyderabadi-style pakki dum biryani — the chicken is cooked first, then layered with rice and finished in a sealed pot. It takes effort. Not complicated effort, but deliberate effort: the rice must be 75% done before layering, the onions must be genuinely dark gold, and the pot must stay sealed for the full 25 minutes. Each of those things matters more than the spice list.

90 min580 kcal4 serves

🌶️Spicy

★4.6

🇮🇳IndiaAdvanced

Meat Dishes

Chicken Tikka Masala

Yogurt-marinated chicken thighs grilled until charred, then simmered in a spiced tomato-and-onion sauce with cream. The two-stage process is the point: first the tikka — small pieces of chicken cooked hard over direct heat — then the masala, the spiced sauce they finish in. The char on the chicken is not incidental. It sits in contrast to the cream, and without it you have a decent tomato curry rather than tikka masala. The sauce needs properly browned onion, bloomed spices, and enough cooking time for the tomatoes to lose their sharpness.

65 min490 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy💪High protein

★4.6

🇮🇳IndiaAdvanced

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Chickpea and Spinach Curry

Two cans of chickpeas, a bag of spinach, tomatoes, coconut milk, and a handful of spices. One pan, 35 minutes. The kind of meal that costs almost nothing, reheats perfectly, and somehow gets better the next day. The spice list looks long but everything on it is standard pantry — once you have them, this recipe costs next to nothing per portion.

35 min340 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

★4.9

🇮🇳IndiaAdvanced

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Chickpea Tikka Masala

Chickpeas simmered in a creamy, deeply spiced tomato and coconut sauce. The flavor builds in layers: caramelized onion as the base, garlic and fresh ginger for sharpness, bloomed spices for depth, tomato paste cooked until it darkens, then coconut milk pulled in at the end to soften everything into something rich and velvety. This is the version of tikka masala that makes people think vegan food is actually good. It reheats better than almost anything and tastes noticeably better the day after you make it.

40 min420 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

★4.5

🇮🇳IndiaMedium

Soups

Dal — Spiced Indian Lentil Soup

A warming Indian red lentil soup tempered with cumin, turmeric, coriander, and ginger — finished with a sizzling spiced ghee pour. One of the most comforting and nourishing dishes in Indian home cooking. Serve with warm chapati or basmati rice.

30 min190 kcal2 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

★4.7

🇮🇳IndiaEasy

Flour and Confectionery Products

Dosa

Thin, crispy fermented rice and lentil crepes from South India. The batter is made the day before: rice and urad dal soaked separately, ground to a smooth batter, then left overnight to ferment. The fermentation is what makes dosa different from every other flatbread — it develops a mild sourness, creates air pockets throughout the batter, and produces a crispiness when the thin layer hits a hot pan that no unfermented batter can replicate. The technique for spreading the batter is specific and takes one or two practice rounds to get right. Makes 8 to 10 dosas.

30 min210 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

★4.7

🇮🇳IndiaEasy

Beverages

Golden Milk (Turmeric Latte)

Warm milk with turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper. The original recipe is centuries old — haldi doodh in Hindi, drunk before sleep as a remedy and a ritual. The black pepper is not decoration: piperine increases curcumin absorption by a significant margin, which is why every serious version of this drink includes it. Ten minutes on the stove, and the kitchen smells like something your grandmother would approve of.

10 min120 kcal2 serves

🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

★4.5

🇮🇳IndiaMedium

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Keralan Fish Curry

Authentic South Indian fish curry from Kerala — tender white fish fillets simmered in a coconut milk sauce with curry leaves, mustard seeds, and tamarind. This isn't your typical creamy curry — it's lighter, tangier, and deeply aromatic from the tempered spices and fresh curry leaves. The tamarind gives it that signature sour note that balances the richness of coconut milk. The golden rule: never stir the fish, just shake the pan gently to keep the fillets intact.

35 min350 kcal4 serves

🌶️Spicy💪High protein🌾Gluten-free

★4.5

🇮🇳IndiaAdvanced

Meat Dishes

Meat Pulao

An Indian one-pot rice dish — basmati rice cooked together with tender lamb or beef, whole spices, onion, and ginger until every grain is fluffy and fragrant. Simpler and cleaner than biryani, with the same deeply satisfying spiced rice and meat combination. Serve with yogurt and fresh salad.

65 min300 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free💪High protein

★4.9

Nearby flavors

Four kitchens with overlapping ingredients and similar rhythms to Indian cooking.

Thai15 recipes Indonesian5 recipes Malaysian1 recipes Japanese25 recipes