Tips and Tricks to Cook Indian Food Faster!

According to Ayurveda, Indian food is made up of 6 primary tastes – sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and spicy. A proper Indian meal should ideally consist of a perfect balance of all these tastes and which is why Indian food is known all over the world for its flavour, taste and sheer variety.

However, there is a common misconception that cooking Indian food involves elaborate processes and is very time-consuming. This often deters young cooks. While this may be true for a novice cook but a regular cook knows this to be otherwise. Knowing a few tips and tricks at the back of your hands will serve you in the long run.

Have the correct kitchen gadgets/ appliances.

Be it any cuisine, peeling the ingredients take up the maximum amount of time. In fact, for quite a few Indian recipes, the preparation time is longer than your cooking time. Annoying, isn’t it? Modern everyday cooking gadgets take away these hassles and reduce cooking time. Gadgets like a food processor give you much flexibility, saves time and allow multitasking. A food processor can be used to make a variety of ingredients that go into almost all Indian food such as sauces, pastes, chutneys, blending spices, etc.

Freeze the base sauces and pastes.

Most of the ingredients that are used in many Indian recipes can be prepared and kept in the freezer. Ingredients like ginger and garlic are essential in Indian cooking. So next time when you sit to finish one of your favourite TV series, start peeling large amounts of ginger and garlic. Using the food processor, you can make a paste and store it in the freezer. This alone will save you at least 5 to 10 minutes of preparation time.

This can be replicated for a variety of other base items like chutneys and sauces. Know that a standard cooking pattern is followed in nearly 80% of Indian recipes.

Skip the onions.

Indian recipes require onions to be fried in oil till they turn brown in colour and the pungent smell goes away. This itself takes nearly 10 to 12 minutes alone, perhaps even longer if the quantity of onions used is more. On a day when you fancy an Indian dish but are short on time then you can try to skip the onions. By avoiding this ingredient altogether, you can save an equivalent amount of time while cooking Indian dishes.

Use a Pressure Cooker more often.

Pressure cookers come in handy to cook a variety of things. If mastered the use of pressure correctly, you can also bake cakes and desserts with this versatile kitchen cookware! Here’s a quick guide to knowing if you are using the pressure cooker correctly. You can cook rice, and lentils in a matter of minutes using a pressure cooker. Simply sauté the aromatics, add your spice mixture, protein, vegetable, or legume of choice, top with some liquid, preferably water, or broth, and bring to full pressure. Depending on how long it takes to cook the raw components used, depending on when it achieves full pressure, reduce heat or remove from heat.

Next time try out our 18/8 Stainless Steel Magic Pressure Cooker to steam veggies, or make rice or meat dishes in minutes!

Cook extra

Indian dishes are mostly curry or sauce based. If you are making an effort to make curry, why not make extra? The extra curries and sauces can be kept in the freezer and used for another meal. If not for all the homemade dishes, you can definitely cook extra when the dish you are preparing is loved and devoured by your family members. This is probably the easiest way to cook any food faster. Wink, wink!

Do let us know in the comment section below if you will be trying any of the tricks mentioned above to save cooking time. We would love to know about your experience!