Is Curry Powder Spicy? Which Blends Are Hot, Which Are Mild, and How to Tell from the Label

Expecting a burn from that jar of curry powder? It’s only as spicy as the chile in it, and plain curry powder doesn’t have to contain any. The USDA’s purchase specification says curry powder should include turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, ginger and cardamom, and doesn’t name chile at all.¹ So a basic jar is usually warm, not hot, with a little bite from black pepper and ginger. Madras and vindaloo blends add red chile for heat. Check the label to see which you’ve got.

At a glance

Merchants’ heat scales are each company’s own rating of its own blend. They aren’t measurements, and a 2 from one shop doesn’t mean the same as a 2 from another.

Where the heat comes from

Chile. Chile heat comes from capsaicinoids.¹⁰ In curry powder that means ground red chile, cayenne or chile flakes. How hot a jar is depends on how much chile went in and which chile. We found no published measurement of curry powder heat.

Black pepper and ginger. Both are on the USDA’s minimum list,¹ and both are pungent in their own right. Piperine, black pepper’s pungent compound, hits the same heat receptor as capsaicin, but far more weakly in lab tests.¹¹ Kew names gingerols and shogaols among ginger’s pungent compounds.¹² See is ginger spicy?. Long cooking softens the pepper: a 1992 study found piperine losses of 50 to 60% when pepper was boiled for 15 to 30 minutes in a curry powder blend.¹³

What isn’t heat. The rest of a typical blend (turmeric, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom and fenugreek) brings warmth, earthiness and bitterness, not burn. The USDA specification expects “a warm bitter taste.”¹ See curry powder for the compounds behind each.

How to tell if a jar is hot

1. Read the ingredient list. Look for chile, chili pepper, red pepper, cayenne or chile flakes. If none shows up, the blend’s bite comes only from pepper and ginger. Grace’s mild Jamaican powder, for example, lists no chile; Blue Mountain’s lists cayenne.⁵⁶
2. Check the name. “Hot,” “Madras” and “vindaloo” signal added chile, though how much varies by maker.³⁴
3. Look for a heat rating. Some merchants print one for their own blends.²⁸

None of these names comes with a fixed recipe. Atlas Obscura’s history of the blend notes there’s never been a set combination of spices,¹⁴ so two jars with the same name can taste different.

The blends, one by one

Madras curry powder

Madras is the blend most often sold as the hot one. Historian Julia Fine, writing for the spice company Diaspora Co., says it was often promoted as “spicier” than the Bengal and Bombay alternatives, and that 19th-century curry powders were laden with turmeric, chili and/or cayenne.³ World Spice Merchants rates its own Madras blend 2 of 5 for heat.² See Madras curry powder and vindaloo vs. Madras curry powder.

Vindaloo curry powder

Vindaloo blends are made to season the dish of the same name. Savory Spice says the dish comes from Goa and was influenced by Portuguese cooking. It calls its own blend, which includes cayenne, medium spicy and “not as hot as typical vindaloo.”⁴ Cooks often add more heat with fresh or dried chiles in the pot. See vindaloo curry powder.

Jamaican curry powder

Jamaican blends vary by brand. Grace’s mild powder lists turmeric, salt, garlic and onion, cumin, coriander, black pepper, fenugreek and allspice, with no chile; Blue Mountain’s lists cayenne.⁵⁶ Hank Shaw, writing about Jamaican curry shrimp, prefers Blue Mountain’s milder version to its very hot one.⁷ See Jamaican curry powder.

Vadouvan

Vadouvan is tied to Pondicherry (now Puducherry), where homemade versions lean heavily on shallots and garlic. World Spice Merchants rates its blend 1 of 5 for heat, though it does include red chile flake.⁸ Its history is disputed. Some accounts call it a French adaptation of a local preparation, while the writer Deepa at Pâticheri argues it’s simply Tamil.¹⁵¹⁶ See vadouvan.

Japanese curry powder

Just One Cookbook says the main ingredients in S&B curry powder, the best-known Japanese brand, include turmeric, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, pepper, chili and orange peel. It describes the powder as fragrant, golden and mildly sweet with a warm, savory kick. It also notes that, unlike commercial curry roux, the powder has no wheat flour.⁹ We found no heat rating. See Japanese curry powder.

Malaysian curry powder

We found no source rating the heat of Malaysian curry powders. See Malaysian curry powder.

Why “curry” doesn’t mean “hot”

The word curry goes back to the Tamil kari, “sauce.” Curry powder was adapted by British settlers in India, while in traditional Indian cooking the spice mixtures are called masala and made at home. Nothing in that history, or in the USDA specification, makes chile heat part of what curry powder is.¹

If it turns out too hot

Dilute. Add more of the dish’s other ingredients, or serve it with plain rice, bread or yogurt. For more, see too much curry powder.

Related

• Curry powder: ingredients, history and safety
• Cooking with curry powder
• Curry paste vs. curry powder
• Garam masala vs. curry powder
• Madras curry powder vs. curry powder
• Jamaican vs. Indian curry powder
• The best spices for curry
• Turmeric substitutes
• Cayenne pepper