The food processor is an indispensable part of our kitchen, and I love Indian food, but it occurred to me I’ve never explored the uses of food processor in Indian cooking before. So I decided to investigate.
Here’s what I uncovered:
A food processor is a GREAT addition if you love Indian cooking. From grinding meat, making chutney, chopping nuts, whole spices, or coconut flakes, puréeing sauces & even making dough for naan, chapati, roti, or paratha. You will quickly wonder how you ever did without one of these amazing machines!
10 Cool Uses of a Food Processor in Indian Cooking
1. Dough for naan bread
Indian bread, whether it’s naan, chapati, roti, paratha or another variety, are an essential part of Indian food and cooking. You’ll be amazed at just how easy it is to make your own bread dough with your food processor. I have a great recipe down below.
2. Tamarind & mint/cilantro chutneys
I love using chutneys as a condiment or even just to dress greens for a salad.
Tamarind is the dark-brown, almost raisin-like chutney that is very common. But you often see a green chutney as well which can be cilantro, mint, or both.
Puréeing in a food processor, along with chopped nuts and/or coconut flakes, maybe some plain yogurt and water make creating your own chutneys quick and easy! Check out one of my favorite recipes below.
3. Making kofta
You’ll see lamb or perhaps chicken kofta all across the Middle East.
In India, while not exclusively, these are often vegetarian. The most common method of making these vegetarian meatballs is by blending potato and paneer cheese, cornstarch, and often adding ground cashews.
So your electric food processor works great to blend all of that up and then simply form into meatballs and fry.
4. Churning butter to make ghee
Ghee is just clarified butter and it’s the cornerstone of Indian food.
While you can buy ghee (not refrigerated usually) at the grocery store, it’s often expensive. Instead, make your own! Just pour heavy cream into your food processor (with a pinch of salt if you wish) and process for about 10 minutes and you’re done!
Then to clarify the butter to make ghee, simply heat the butter either in the oven or on a stove top for about 15 minutes on low heat.
It will foam, bubble, and then start to foam again, and then, usually around the 15-minute mark, it’s done.
Pour through a strainer or some cheesecloth to remove any solids and allow it to harden back and it’s ready to go. Refrigerate for longer shelf life, but even at room temperature, it will last a month.
5. Finely chopping spinach for Saag Paneer
Saag Paneer may well be my daughter’s favorite thing to eat when we go to our favorite Indian restaurant in Austin (Asiana).
Essentially, it’s a creamed spinach with large chunks of paneer cheese floating in it. Many recipes call for frozen spinach, but whether you use frozen or fresh, it works great to puree in your food processor until smooth.
Then you simply saute with some onion, garlic, freshly grated ginger and maybe a little bit of chile for some heat, eventually adding the spinach and some essential spices like cumin and coriander. Plain yogurt gives the spinach it’s creamy texture at the end.
6. Blending onion and tomato for a sauce base
LOTS of Indian sauces and curries start with a base of onion and tomato blended together.
Just dropping them into the food processor and blending until you get the smooth consistency you want is super easy! For some reason, a lot of Indian recipes don’t call for garlic, but I love it and add it to almost everything, so throw a few cloves in as well if you love it too.
7. Dicing potatoes or okra or other veggies
The dicing blade doesn’t work for all veggies (carrots can be challenging for some reason) but works great for potatoes, long beans, and things like okra, all of which work great in a variety of Indian recipes
8. Make your own curry paste
Curry paste is an essential ingredient in curry,
Make your own curry paste for Indian food quickly and easily in your food processor.
While there are MANY varieties of Indian curry pastes, the base of many is often onion, tomato, ginger, and garlic. So just start by puréeing all of them and adding the common spices like turmeric, cumin, and coriander.
9. Create amazing homemade soups
My friend Doug loves Indian soups! I’m a little weird in that I only really eat soup when it’s cold outside. That being said, Indian cuisine gives us some GREAT Indian soups.
Many just blend cooked lentils or garbanzo beans as the base. You’ll also hear the term Shorba, which can be a catch-all phrase used throughout the Middle East to describe a variety of types of soups.
Mulligatawny is probably the most widely known type of Indian soup probably due in large part to The British making modifications during their colonization period of India. But no matter what the base for your Indian soup recipes, blending in your food processor is a sinch!
10. Make your own garam masala spice blend
Garam masala is a spice blend used extensively in Indian food. Often (but not always), it’s sprinkled on top of a finished dish rather than cooked with it the whole time.
You would typically start by toasting whole coriander, cumin, fennel, and cardamom seeds, along with whole cloves, a small amount of nutmeg and peppercorns.
Add a small amount of chili powder for heat if you wish. Toast in a dry skillet over low heat. I would not toast anything where you’re using a ground spice; just the whole pieces.
Then simply transfer to your food processor and blend until smooth. For a larger sized food processor, this works best with a large batch. Otherwise, you might use a clean coffee blade grinder.
Mixer juicer 