Tandoori Masala: What’s in It, Where the Red Comes From, and How to Use It

That bright red on tandoori chicken isn’t built into the spices. Tandoori masala is the blend you stir into yogurt to marinate meat for a tandoor, the clay oven that gives it its name, and most recipes start with coriander and cumin before adding chile and warm spices. The red is where blends differ most: it can come from chiles, paprika or beet powder, or, in some store-bought blends, from a synthetic dye like Red 40.¹² A tandoor also runs far hotter than a home oven, so at home, reach for the broiler or a grill.

At a glance

What is in it

There’s no single recipe. Three published versions show the range:

The two home recipes lean hard on coriander and cumin, while the Woodland label leads with salt. Fenugreek and cinnamon show up in both the Singla recipe and the Woodland label.

Where the red comes from

That bright red you associate with tandoori chicken isn’t built into the spices. Anupy Singla, a cookbook author who also sells spices, writes that the blend was originally made with a leaning toward turmeric and paprika, which gives a yellowish orange-red, not a vivid red. The bright red of some store-bought blends, she writes, comes from food dyes like Red 40, which she found on one blend’s ingredient list.¹ Woodland Foods colors its blend with beet powder and paprika instead. So the color on the plate tells you more about the blend than the dish. If you want to avoid synthetic dyes, check the label.

Flavor and the compounds behind it

Anjula Devi describes tandoori masala as pungent and complex, made of sweet aromatics and many less pungent spices. The aroma compounds belong to the individual spices:

We found no analysis of a whole tandoori masala blend.

History

What’s documented is about tandoori chicken and the restaurant most closely tied to it. Kundan Lal Gujral and Kundan Lal Jaggi, two cooks from Peshawar, in what’s now northwest Pakistan, came to New Delhi after the 1947 Partition and opened a restaurant called Moti Mahal. Anupy Singla credits Moti Mahal with changing how the tandoor was used (it was traditionally an oven for breads like naan) and credits Gujral with first cooking marinated chicken in it.¹ That’s her account. NPR’s reporting focuses on a separate fight, between the two founders’ families, over who invented butter chicken.¹¹

We couldn’t trace claims that tandoori chicken dates to the 1920s, or that it caught on in the United States in the 1960s, to any source.

How tandoori masala is used

The main event is a yogurt marinade. Anjula Devi notes that blended with yogurt, the masala makes a marinade. Chicken, lamb, fish, paneer and vegetables all take it.

The oven. A tandoor runs far hotter than a home oven. Anupy Singla puts it at up to 900°F.¹ At home, use the hottest oven setting, the broiler or a grill instead.

Butter chicken. NPR describes butter chicken as tandoori-roasted chicken doused in buttery tomato sauce. Tandoori masala seasons the chicken; the sauce is a separate step.

Technique. Anjula Devi dry-roasts the whole spices before grinding. If your blend contains salt, as the Woodland blend does, taste the marinade before adding any more.

Buying and quality

The USDA’s specification for spice blends names fifteen blends, and tandoori masala isn’t one of them.³ We didn’t find any other standard. Check the ingredient list for three things: whether salt comes first, how the blend is colored, and whether it has the warm spices (cinnamon, cloves, cardamom) you’re expecting.

Storage

Anupy Singla says her homemade blend keeps up to 6 months.¹ That’s one author’s advice, not a measured shelf life. The University of California Cooperative Extension names air, light, moisture and heat as what speeds up flavor and color loss in spices.¹² America’s Test Kitchen suggests the smell test: if it still smells strong, it’s probably still potent.¹³

Safety

Lead in spices generally. A New York City health department review of 1,496 spice samples collected from 2008 to 2017 found detectable lead in more than half.¹⁴ The abstract doesn’t break the results out by blend.

Health claims

You’ll find lists crediting tandoori masala with helping weight loss, relieving constipation or fighting cancer through capsaicin. We couldn’t trace any of that to a regulator or systematic review, so we don’t make those claims.

Substitutes and comparisons

• Tandoori masala substitutes
• Tandoori masala vs. garam masala (see also garam masala)
• Tikka masala, the blend for the sauced dish

The individual spices: coriander, cumin, fenugreek, paprika, cayenne pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, ginger, black pepper and garlic powder.