An Indian restaurant menu can be long and full of unfamiliar words. Most dishes, though, are built from a small vocabulary of cooking methods, sauces and breads. Learn those, and you can order confidently almost anywhere. This guide covers the words you'll see most often on menus in the US and Canada, and how to build a balanced meal.
How a meal is structured
Indian meals are shared. Rather than each person ordering a main course, the table orders several dishes and everyone takes a little of each, with rice and bread.
A good rule of thumb for a group:
- One starter per two people
- One main dish per person, with a mix of meat or fish, vegetables, and a dal
- One rice dish and one or two breads for every two or three people
- Raita (yoghurt) to cool things down
Cooking methods
- Tandoori: Marinated in yoghurt and spices, then cooked in a tandoor, a clay oven heated to very high temperatures with charcoal or gas. Tandoori chicken, fish tikka, paneer tikka and seekh kebab all come out of it, and so does naan.
- Tikka: Boneless pieces, usually marinated and grilled in the tandoor.
- Kebab / kabab: Grilled or pan-fried meat, often minced. Seekh kebab is minced meat on a skewer, shami kebab is a pan-fried patty, and galouti kebab is very finely minced and soft.
- Karahi / kadai: Cooked quickly in a wok-like iron pan with tomatoes, ginger, green chilli and peppers. Karahi chicken or goat, cooked to order, is a highlight of Pakistani restaurants.
- Tawa: Cooked on a flat griddle.
- Dum: Slow-cooked in a sealed pot, as in dum biryani or dum aloo.
Curries and sauces
The word "curry" isn't used much in India. Menus usually name dishes by their sauce or style:
- Tikka masala: Grilled tikka in a creamy, spiced tomato sauce. It's hugely popular and probably created in Britain.
- Butter chicken (murgh makhani): Tandoori chicken in a smooth, buttery, mildly sweet tomato sauce. It's from Delhi, and it's milder than tikka masala.
- Korma: A mild, rich curry with yoghurt, cream, and ground nuts or seeds. A good choice for people who don't like heat.
- Vindaloo: A Goan dish with vinegar, garlic and red chilli, traditionally made with pork. In most North American restaurants it's simply the hottest thing on the menu.
- Rogan josh: A Kashmiri lamb or goat curry, coloured red by mild Kashmiri chilli. It's aromatic rather than fiery.
- Saag / palak: Cooked greens. Palak paneer is spinach with cheese, and sarson da saag is Punjabi mustard greens.
- Jalfrezi: A stir-fried dish with peppers, onion and tomato. It's medium-hot.
- Madras: A hot, red, tangy curry. The name is more of a restaurant convention than a real dish from Chennai.
- Chettinad: A South Indian style with black pepper, fennel, and roasted coconut and spices. It's hot and very aromatic.
- Nihari: A slow-cooked beef or goat stew, traditionally eaten for breakfast in Pakistan and Old Delhi.
- Haleem: A slow-cooked mix of meat, wheat and lentils, pounded until smooth. It's especially popular during Ramadan.
Vegetarian basics
- Paneer: A fresh, firm cheese that doesn't melt. You'll see it in paneer tikka, palak paneer, paneer butter masala and matar paneer (with peas).
- Dal: Lentils. Dal makhani is black lentils slow-cooked with butter and cream, dal tadka is yellow lentils finished with sizzling spiced ghee, and chana masala or chole is a spiced chickpea curry.
- Aloo: Potato. Aloo gobi is potato and cauliflower.
- Baingan bharta: Smoky roasted and mashed aubergine.
- Malai kofta: Vegetable and paneer dumplings in a creamy sauce.
- Bhindi: Okra.
Breads
- Naan: Soft leavened bread baked on the wall of the tandoor. Garlic naan and butter naan are the favourites, and peshawari naan is stuffed with nuts and raisins.
- Roti / chapati: Unleavened whole-wheat flatbread. It's lighter and everyday.
- Tandoori roti: Whole-wheat bread baked in the tandoor.
- Paratha: Layered, flaky whole-wheat bread cooked with ghee on a tawa. Aloo paratha is stuffed with spiced potato.
- Kulcha: A soft leavened bread, often stuffed. Amritsari kulcha is the famous version.
- Bhatura: Large, puffy fried bread served with chole.
- Puri: Small, puffy fried whole-wheat bread.
Rice
- Basmati rice / jeera rice: Plain, or with cumin.
- Pulao: Rice cooked with whole spices and sometimes vegetables.
- Biryani: Rice layered with meat or vegetables and slow-cooked. It's a meal in itself. See our guide to biryani styles.
Starters and snacks
- Samosa: Fried pastry, usually filled with spiced potato and peas.
- Pakora / bhaji: Vegetables fried in chickpea-flour batter.
- Chaat: Tangy, crunchy street snacks. See our chaat guide.
- Chicken 65: Spicy fried chicken bites from Chennai.
- Gobi Manchurian: Indo-Chinese fried cauliflower in a sweet-spicy-sour sauce.
Drinks and desserts
- Lassi: A yoghurt drink, either sweet, salted or mango.
- Masala chai: Tea brewed with milk, sugar and spices.
- Gulab jamun: Fried milk dumplings soaked in rose-cardamom syrup.
- Rasmalai: Soft cheese patties in sweet, saffron-flavoured milk.
- Kulfi: A dense, slow-set Indian ice cream.
- Kheer: Rice pudding with cardamom and nuts.
Tips
- Say how hot you want it. Most restaurants cook to order and will make a dish mild, medium or hot. "Indian hot" is hotter than you might think.
- Don't fill up on naan too early. It's easy to do.
- Ask what the kitchen is known for. Many restaurants have regional specialities that don't stand out on the menu.
- Try the lunch buffet. It's the cheapest way to taste a lot of dishes at once.
- Explore regional restaurants. Beyond the North Indian menu described here, look for South Indian, Gujarati, Bengali, Goan, Hyderabadi, Pakistani and Nepali restaurants. Our city guides show what each area does best.