Curry Base Sauce

It’s no secret that we love our Indian food, we can’t get enough of the wonderful blend of spices and vegetables.

If you’ve eaten at an Indian restaurant or if you’ve been lucky enough to visit India and eat an amazing curry there, you’ll know just how good the food it.

What if you could recreate the depth of flavor of the curry and make a show-stopping curry that would wow your friends and family?

Well, you can. If you follow our curry base sauce recipe, you’ll have the base for an amazing curry like our incredible vegetable bhuna.

Curries at home never tasted so good!

You will never want to order a takeaway again!

How do I make a good curry?

If you’re making a homemade curry from scratch, then there are four different parts to making a sensational curry sauce recipe.

You’ll need a great garlic and ginger paste, the fresher the paste, the better it’ll taste. It’s really very easy to make if you follow our garlic and ginger paste recipe.

What’s great is that you can batch make it and freeze what you don’t need, meaning that you always have it to hand.

You’ll need to make a good curry spice mix. Spices are so very important in Indian cooking, get these right and you’ll really have a delicious tasting curry.

Follow our 2 minute curry spice mix recipe

Then you’ll need a fantastic curry base on which to build the curry flavor, that’s where this recipe comes in.

Once you have all of these elements prepared, you’re ready for your curry of choice, we’ve used it for our sensational vegetable bhuna and paneer jalfrezi curries.

What is a curry base sauce?

Curry base sauce is the sauce that you will find cooking in large quantities in Indian restaurant kitchens.

It’s a smooth base that’s used in all the curry sauces that an Indian restaurant will produce.

In Indian restaurants, they simply don’t have the time to make their huge range of curries from scratch.

So they’ll have a base curry recipe that they will use.

They will make restaurant style curry base, it’s an Indian base gravy, that they use in all of their curries.

It’s like the lightly painted canvas ready and waiting for more detail.

What does it taste like?

A word of warning, you’re not going to cook up your curry base sauce, taste it and think that it’s amazing. That just won’t happen.

Your curry base isn’t supposed to be the star of the show, it’ll taste flavorsome but if anything, a little watery.

It’s when you add it to your actual curry sauce, like our vegetable bhuna that it transforms and helps to create a mouth-watering curry dish.

Homemade vs shop bought

Maybe we’re biased, we’ll admit that but in our opinion, there is absolutely no comparison between a homemade curry base sauce and a shop bought one.

You simply don’t get the depth of flavors that you’ll get from making your own Indian restaurant style curry.

Is it worth the effort?

Yes it is. Hands down it’s worth the effort.

When you see your family and friends faces as they taste their first mouthful of your amazing curry.

It’s priceless.

How do I store it?

This is the good thing about making up your own Indian restaurant curry base sauce, it’ll keep for a week, so you can make it a couple of days before you need it.

Does it freeze?

Yes, it most certainly does.

You could double up the quantity and batch cook it and freeze what you don’t need in individual curry sized portions.

Next time you make your own Indian restaurant curry, just take it out of the freezer and a lot of the hard work has been done.

Is it vegan?

Yes, it’s 100% vegan.

If you’re vegan or cooking for a vegan, then you can make this curry base sauce without any concerns.

Recipe notes and tips

Not got any turmeric? No problem, check out our useful substitute for turmeric guide.

How do I make it from scratch?

It’s easy to make this Indian restaurant curry base from scratch if you follow our recipe.

This Indian base gravy takes a little time, but the end results are well worth the effort.

Get a large pot ready for your ingredients and add 110g (half a cup) of vegetable oil.

Peel and chop 4 large onions into quarters, you’ll need to separate the onion into quarters into petals, add them to the pot.

Peel 4 cloves of garlic and then peel and finely chop 1 tbsp of fresh ginger and add them both to the pot.

Remove the leaves from 7 coriander (cilantro) stalks but make sure you save the leaves, don’t throw them away, add the stalks to the pot.

Next to go in are your spices, so add in 1.5 tbsps of ground cumin powder and ground coriander powder mixed powder (you can use 0.75 of cumin powder and 0.75 coriander powder if you don’t have the mix).

Add 0.75 tbsp of turmeric, 0.75 tbsp garam masala, 0.75 tbsp of fenugreek, 0.75 tsp salt and pour over 1350g (6 cups) of boiling water.

Bring all of your ingredients to a boil and let them simmer gently, cover the pot but only loosely and leave them simmering for an hour.

Now it’s time to add in a 400g can of chopped tomatoes, give the mixture a good stir and continue simmering and cook for around 20 minutes.

Now let the mixture cool down before you put it in a blender or food processor and blend until it’s a lovely smooth consistency.

Your Indian curry base sauce is now ready to cook with.

We hope you love our recipes as much as we do!

Please do leave a comment below and let us know how you enjoyed this recipe, we’d love to hear your feedback.

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