Tandoori masala – homemade tandoori spice mix

Tandoori masala is a little bit of Indian BBQ fairy dust. The stuff that makes grilled chicken magic. Or lamb chops crazy tasty.

You can buy tandoori masala. Just about anywhere. Every Indian grocer on the planet sells it.

Super convenient.Comes in a nice neat container even. But it has a fatal flaw. And I just can’t take it anymore.

There is too much salt in commercial tandoori masala

And that makes me a little crazy. Commercial tandoori masala is made to season meat right before it hits the grill. Nothing else.

So it’s salty. Like commercial dry rubs. Or cajun spice. Salt is sometimes even the first ingredient.

It works. It’s ridiculously expensive for something that’s mostly salt. But it works. A one trick pony. A good trick. Grilled chicken likes salt.

But it is a real pain when you want to use it as an ingredient. In a chicken tikka masala for instance.

You have to figure out how it will impact your salt balance. That’s the part that drives me crazy.

And every brand is different. Some have more salt than others. Some use a mix of salt and MSG. Two separate ingredients. So they go lower on the list of ingredients. Sneaky.

Makes it really hard to write recipes. One brand works but another one is way too salty. That’s why I am doing this post. I’m tired of being limited.

I’m working on a hotel style chicken tikka masala right now. And commercial tandoori masala is messing with my ability to get the results I want. So it has to go.

Amchoor is the secret ingredient

I thought a lot about this recipe. Tasted a lot of spice mixes. Ate a fair bit of tandoori chicken. Not a hardship. I love tandoori chicken.

I came to the conclusion that the error bars on tandoori masala are pretty big. A little more of this. A little less of that. Doesn’t make a huge difference.

Except for one ingredient. Amchoor. Ground dried mango powder. There’s a tang to tandoori masala. It’s important. Critical even.

That tang has to come from somewhere. Cheaper blends use citric acid. The better ones use amchoor. I’m going with amchoor.

Red doesn’t mean anything

Tandoori chicken is red. Right? It’s always red. Here’s the thing. It’s really supposed to get its colour from a whole lot of chili powder, paprika and turmeric.

That’s the awesome version. Maybe not for the faint of heart though. So the watered down version uses food colouring.

Food colouring adds no flavour. None. Looks good though. It’s what people expect to see.

Think of red icing. Does that taste like tandoori? No? Same stuff. Zero added flavour. Literally. Pure cosmetics.

I don’t know where it started. It has to be bright red/orange or it’s not tandoori. Why is that even a thing?

I’m feeling the shame here though. The hypocrisy is almost more than I can bear. Almost. I’m bad. I use food colouring when I take pictures for glebekitchen.

Terrible. I know. But red sells. Nobody would care otherwise. Which is unfortunate. But also fact. I am guilty of propagating the myth.

I’m going to stop. Enough is enough. Truth in tandoori chicken here from now on. Well mostly anyway. Like I said. Red sells.

Small batches are best for tandoori masala

This recipe does not make a lot of tandoori masala. And there’s a reason for that. The wonder that fresh ground spices brings does not last forever. It fades.

It does scale though. If you need a lot of it just use the slider in the recipe card. You can make a kilo of it if you want.

I like to keep my batches small. Use it up. While it’s still amazing. And then make some more.