Food & culture · 3 min read ·
Indian Food for Beginners: The Regional Cuisines Explained
A friendly guide to Indian food beyond curry houses: how South, North, West and East Indian cooking differ, the key ingredients of each region, and the easiest dishes to start cooking at home.
Ask someone outside South Asia what Indian food is and they’ll probably describe a curry house menu: butter chicken, tikka masala, naan and rice. That’s real Indian food, but it’s only a small part of it, mostly from the north and from Punjabi restaurant traditions. India is a country of more than a billion people, dozens of languages and very different climates, and its food changes every few hundred kilometres. This guide is a quick map.
The south: rice, lentils, coconut and curry leaves
South India (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) is hot and humid, with rice paddies and coconut palms. Its food is built on rice and lentils, often fermented together into batters for dosa and idli. Tamarind gives sourness, coconut gives richness, and nearly every dish finishes with a of mustard seeds and . Meals are often vegetarian, but the coast is famous for fish, like Kerala fish curry, and Tamil Nadu’s Chettinad region for fiery chicken curry.
Start with: sambar, lemon rice and upma.
The north: wheat, paneer and slow-cooked dals
The north (Punjab, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Kashmir) grows wheat, so bread is central: roti, paratha, naan and bhature. Dairy is everywhere: ghee, yogurt, cream and . This is where the famous restaurant dishes come from: paneer butter masala, palak paneer and dal makhani. Kashmir has its own refined cuisine, including rogan josh.
Pakistani readers will find northern Indian food very familiar, because Punjab was one region before 1947 and its cooking is shared.
The west: sweet-sour Gujarat, Mumbai street food and Goa
Western India is a mix. Gujarat is mostly vegetarian and loves a balance of sweet, sour and salty in snacks like dhokla. Mumbai has some of the world’s best street food: pav bhaji, vada pav and bhel puri. Goa, a former Portuguese colony, cooks coconut-rich seafood curries and dishes like chicken xacuti. Rajasthan, in the desert, makes hearty food like dal baati churma and fiery laal maas.
The east: mustard oil, river fish and sweets
Bengal and Odisha cook with mustard oil and the five-spice mix . Fish and rice are the everyday meal, as in macher jhol. The east is also India’s sweet capital: rasgulla, mishti doi and many more are made from fresh milk curds. Bihar’s litti chokha and Kolkata’s kathi rolls are favourite street foods.
A few ingredients to know
- Curry leaves: fragrant leaves used fresh in southern and western cooking.
- Hing (asafoetida): a pungent resin that tastes like onion and garlic once fried.
- Mustard seeds: crackled in oil at the start or end of cooking.
- Paneer: fresh cheese that doesn’t melt.
- Tamarind and kokum: sour fruits used instead of tomato or lemon.
Our recipes explain each one and suggest substitutes, and you can tap any ⓘ word for a quick definition.
Where to start
If you’re new to Indian cooking, try one dish from each region: paneer butter masala from the north, masala dosa or upma from the south, pav bhaji from Mumbai and macher jhol from Bengal. Then explore our full Indian recipes.
