Turn up the heat with our Top 8 tikka masala sauces
Whatever the health benefits, a tikka masala curry can make us feel warm and satisfied. We sought the most interesting sauces with lots of blended flavours, and our top markers delivered well.
Cold weather has us craving warm spices in warm dishes bubbling to heat us from the inside.
It’s very satisfying, therapeutic even, to buy whole spices, grinding them as we need them, but when ready-made sauces are as good as our Top 8, often with a shelf life of a year, they are worth having in our cupboards.
We can make the best of leftovers or whatever fresh vegetables are in season by simply warming them up in the sauces. Grating raw vegetables is a good way to speed up cooking. Try grating butternut, or any squash, carrot, parsnip, or potato.
In this house, we love peas in a curry, as well as cauliflower florets. Butterbeans and chickpeas make a very tasty, substantial meal, and, of course, the most popular addition is chicken pieces.
Tikka means small pieces, while masala means mixed spices. In India, this usually means pepper, turmeric, cardamom and cumin, so we checked these out in our tasting to see what additions were of interest. Most have onion, garlic, and ginger, and many have turmeric (and black pepper to help absorb its benefits), so sauces can be a powerhouse of cold-fighting nutrients.
Whatever the health benefits, a tikka masala curry can make us feel warm and satisfied. We sought the most interesting sauces with lots of blended flavours, and our top markers delivered well.
This tomato base has the expected blend of turmeric, cardamom and cumin with the delicious zing of chilli, black pepper and paprika, softened by rose petals, nutmeg, black cardamom, coriander, and star anise. It’s well-balanced, with a hit of chilli noted on the palate after a few seconds. Use as a simple sauce for vegetables and leftovers. We enjoyed it with added fresh prawns. Two chilli heat rating. Excellent. Available in Supervalu.
- Score: 10
Quite a chilli hit here for a one chilli rating. The tomato base has cream and butter for smoothness and to tone down the ginger and black pepper, and there are good background flavours of fenugreek, turmeric, cumin and coriander. Also, some welcome chunks of tomato. You get what you pay for.
- Score: 9
We preferred this one to the pricier Specially Selected two-step sauce (360g €1.99), which comes with a separate container of dry spices on the lid (though good for frying with raw meat). In this one, there is yogurt and cream, which mollifies the chilli (with its justifiable two chilli medium heat rating). There is also turmeric, fenugreek and ginger to add complexity and warmth. Good for the price and deeper in flavour than Lidl’s.
- Score: 8.75
A complete sauce, this has a base of tomatoes, yogurt and cream, which are a good counterpoint to fresh-tasting cumin, coriander, paprika, cassia (sweet cinnamon), with a decent zing of ginger and chilli. Concentrated carrot juice adds sweetness and concentrated mushrooms add an umami savouriness. Listed as two chilli medium heat, I would say more low heat, with sweetness dominating.
- Score: 8.5
The two chilli rating of medium heat comes through after the initial tomato, yogurt and cream smoothness. Ginger dominates, with a hint of coriander. Not a complex sauce, but reasonably priced for a leftovers day.
- Score: 8
This curry kit comprises three separate pouches, two sauces and one whole spice. Each is supposed to be added one by one, which makes figuring out the order difficult as the pouches are not clearly labelled. Spices are as expected, and there are cashew nuts and rice flour to thicken one of the sauces. Still, the result was good with warm spices the overall taste. One chilli rating.
- Score: 8
A pulpy tomato texture has coconut, onion, red pepper thickened with cornflour. Chilli purée provides the heat, balanced by warmer coriander and garlic, sweetened with agave syrup. Not a complex flavour, and sweetness dominates. An easy option for children, along with seasonal vegetables and leftovers. The two chilli rating is not quite as hot as others.
- Score: 7
One of the first to introduce us to Indian flavours, this company was acquired by Associated British Foods in 2007 and still offers many of the original products. This one has a two-chilli rating, which is justifiable, but has a disappointingly low range of back flavours, the chilli dominating. Yogurt and cream tone it down, but the garlic and ginger aren’t enough to make it interesting for tasters.
- Score: 7
