Vindaloo Curry Powder: The Goan Dish, the Blend, and the Heat

The ingredient that defines vindaloo isn’t in vindaloo curry powder. The Goan dish takes its name from the Portuguese carne de vinha d’alhos, meat marinated in wine vinegar and garlic, and the vinegar goes into the marinade, not the powder. What the three blends compared below do share is a core of chiles, cumin, black pepper, cinnamon and cloves, while the USDA’s spec for plain curry powder names no chile at all. Heat varies by blend, from medium to fiery.

At a glance

Where vindaloo comes from

Food historian Lizzy Collingham, writing for Saveur, traces vindaloo to carne de vinha d’alhos, a Portuguese dish of meat marinated in wine vinegar and garlic, which reached India with Portuguese explorers in the 15th century. India had no wine vinegar, so Franciscan priests made their own from palm wine, and local cooks added tamarind, black pepper, cinnamon and cardamom. Chiles, Collingham notes, were part of Portugal’s legacy too, brought to India from the Americas.¹ Daily Maverick’s Tony Jackman also describes Goan cooks swapping palm vinegar for the red wine, and defines vindaloo as meat, usually pork, marinated in vinegar and garlic.² It’s a dish from Goa influenced by Portuguese cuisine.

On the meat, Collingham says Christian Goan cooks, free of caste and religious restrictions, were happy to make the beef and pork dishes that expatriates loved.¹

Vindaloo changed when it got to Britain. Collingham writes that it became just another hot curry, its balance of spices buried under a blistering excess of chiles.¹ Jackman puts it the same way: the British version came to be understood as simply an extremely hot curry.² More generally, curry powder itself was adapted by British settlers in India, while Indian cooks make their spice mixtures, or masalas, at home.

What goes in it: three blends compared

There’s no standard recipe, and the three versions below are all over the map.

Five ingredients show up in all three: chiles, cumin, black pepper, cinnamon and cloves. None of the three lists vinegar. For comparison, the USDA’s purchase specification for plain curry powder lists turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, ginger and cardamom, with no chile.⁶

Flavor, heat and the compounds behind it

How hot a vindaloo powder is depends entirely on the blend:

Savory Spice recommends adding extra cayenne if you want it spicier.³ Behind the heat, the smell is warm and sharp, with cumin’s earthiness, the sweetness of cinnamon and the medicinal edge of cloves. The compounds belong to the individual spices:

How it is used

Its main job is the dish. Savory Spice suggests about 1 teaspoon of its blend per pound of beef, pork, poultry or fish, and also suggests it for chicken, rice and roasted vegetables.³ Silk Road Spices says it can go into any recipe that calls for curry powder.⁵

If you’re cooking a vindaloo in the Goan spirit, the vinegar and garlic matter as much as the powder. The original marinade was wine vinegar and garlic, later palm vinegar in Goa. Pork is the traditional choice. Marinate the meat in the vinegar, garlic and spice mixture before cooking.

Buying and storage

Read the ingredient list. Blends run from medium to very hot, and some add salt. We didn’t find a sourced shelf life for vindaloo powder. Like any ground blend, keep it sealed, dark and cool, and replace it once the smell fades.

Safety

Lead in spices. A New York City health department review of spice samples found detectable lead in more than half of them.¹¹ The abstract doesn’t report results for vindaloo powder specifically.

Health claims. You’ll see vindaloo powder credited with preventing Alzheimer’s disease and cancer (through turmeric’s curcumin and chile’s capsaicin) and lowering blood pressure (through cardamom). We found no regulator summary or systematic review that backs those claims. NCCIH says there isn’t enough evidence to conclude that turmeric or curcumin is beneficial for any health purpose,¹² and only one of the three blends above even contains turmeric.³

Substitutes and comparisons

The closest stand-in is Madras curry powder or plain curry powder with added cayenne. Ratio (Method): Start with the same amount and adjust the heat. See vindaloo vs. Madras curry powder, is curry powder spicy?, too much curry powder and Portuguese spices. The individual spices: cumin, coriander, fenugreek, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, turmeric and ginger.