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7 min
27/04/2026
Kashmiri food recipes from the Kashmiri Pandit community occupy a distinct space in Indian regional cooking. It uses simple whole ingredients to produce Kashmiri dishes with extraordinary depth. The cuisine is based on the use of mustard oil, whole and ground spices, yoghurt-based gravies, and a handful of signature aromatics of asafoetida, fennel, dried ginger, and Kashmiri red chilli. Rich lamb curries and green vegetables with rice and zamut dod (curd) are the staple food of the valley.
Kashmiri Pandits are the native folk of Kashmir for millennia, but the Himalayan Valley has continuously been exposed to foreign cultures from across the mountains, ruled by Mughals and Afghans, and influenced by preachers and travellers from Central Asia and Persia. All of this has shaped the regional cuisine.
The onion-garlic-tomato trifecta is at the core of most of Indian cuisine but strikingly absent from Kashmiri pandit cuisines, making their meals immediately distinctive. Despite its absence, Kashmiri Pandits balance the taste, structure, and texture with ingredients like yoghurt, asafoetida, turmeric powder, and more.
Food plays a central role in the cultural and religious practices of Kashmiri Pandits. Festivals, weddings, and religious ceremonies are incomplete without elaborate feasts featuring traditional dishes. Shivratri, which honours the deity Shiva, is one of the main festivals for Kashmiri Pandits.
They cook the auspicious tahaer or yellow rice on Shivratri, and in fact on all special occasions, especially on birthdays. Prasad during Shivratri (called Herath by Pandits) traditionally includes rice, cooked lamb and fish, making this one of the rare Hindu communities that offers non-vegetarian prasad at their holiest festival.
To understand Kashmiri Pandit food recipes, one needs to get into the heart of what is used in their cooking. Below are the essentials:
Core fats and aromatics:
Mustard oil: the cooking fat for nearly every savoury dish; heated to the smoking point before use.
Asafoetida (hing): a replacement of onion and garlic in building savoury depth.
Fennel seed powder (saunf): used in both meat and vegetable dishes; gives characteristic sweetness.
Dried ginger powder (sounth): used in place of fresh ginger.
Spices:
Kashmiri red chilli powder: mild heat, deep red colour; used generously.
Ratanjot (alkanet root): natural dye used in Pandit rogan josh to achieve a rich red-purple colour.
Black cardamom: smoky, woody aroma; used in meat dishes.
Green cardamom, cloves, cinnamon: whole spices for tempering.
Black peppercorns.
Saffron: used in festive rice and select gravies.
Vegetables and proteins:
Haak (leafy greens), nadru (lotus stem), muji (radish), and wangun (eggplant) are community favourites.
Baby potatoes, paneer, lotus stem, turnips, and kidney beans.
Lamb (preferred over goat), fish.
Dairy:
Curd or yoghurt: the base of most gravies
Milk: used in chaman (paneer) preparations
Meat is first marinated in yoghurt and then cooked over low heat for a long time to make it tender. There appears to be an Awadhi influence in the meat-preparing technique.
You can broadly divide Kashmir's cuisine into two distinct styles: Kashmiri Muslim and Kashmiri Pandit. The Kashmiri Muslims are heavy meat eaters; the Pandits, while still being meat eaters, enjoy their vegetarian dishes too. Traditionally, Muslims would use shallots and ginger, which the Pandits abstained from. Pandits would instead use asafoetida, which didn't really factor in the Muslims' cooking.
Ingredients/Feature |
Kashmiri Pandit |
Kashmiri Muslim |
Onion and garlic |
Not used |
Widely used |
Tomatoes |
Not used traditionally |
Used |
Cooking fat |
Mustard oil |
Ghee or mustard oil |
Rogan Josh colour |
Ratanjot (alkanet root) |
Mawal (cockscomb flower) |
Tempering base |
Asafoetida |
Onion, ginger, garlic |
Ginger |
Dried ginger powder |
Fresh ginger |
Non-veg proteins |
Lamb and fish |
Lamb, goat, chicken |
Egg and chicken |
Generally avoided |
Widely used |
Festive meal |
No specific wazwan equivalent |
Wazwan (36-course feast) |
The traditional Kashmiri food recipes reflect both everyday nourishing dishes and festive favourites, deeply rooted in the cultural and religious life of the Kashmiri Pandit community. There are simple greens like haak and elaborate meat preparations like rogan josh, with each dish carrying a lot of history within it.
Ingredients: leafy greens, mustard oil, asafoetida, dried red chillies, salt
Kashmiri haak is a Kashmiri Pandit dish of greens (saag) cooked with mustard oil, asafoetida, and dried red chillies. It is a daily dish that is popular across the region and is cooked in almost all Kashmiri homes. Haak is so central to Kashmiri Pandit identity that the Kashmiri equivalent of ‘bread and butter’ is haakh-batte – greens and rice.
Ingredients: baby potatoes, yoghurt, mustard oil, whole and ground spices
Kashmiri Dum Aloo is a traditional dish of baby potatoes slow-cooked in a spiced yoghurt-based gravy. The gravy is made without onion and garlic and gets its flavour from aromatic whole and ground spices. Unlike North Indian dum aloo versions, this recipe uses dry Kashmiri red chillies, fennel powder, ginger powder, and yoghurt.
Ingredients: lotus stem, yoghurt, mustard oil, mild spices
Nadru Yakhni is a mild yoghurt-based curry featuring lotus stems (nadru). The lotus stems are cooked in a fragrant gravy of yoghurt, fennel powder, and dry ginger powder, creating a dish that is both light yet flavourful. The lotus stem (nadru) is crunchy, mildly sweet, and holds its structure even after cooking.
Ingredients: mutton, yoghurt, mustard oil, whole spices, chilli, fennel, dry ginger
There are basically two types of Rogan Josh: the Kashmiri Muslim version and the Kashmiri Pandit version. The Muslims use onions and garlic, while the Pandits do not. For natural food colouring, the Muslims use mawal, while the Pandits use ratanjot. Meat is relished in the Pandit kitchen, whether in qalia, yakhni, or rogan josh.
Ingredients: paneer, milk, yoghurt, saffron, fennel, whole spices
In Kashmiri, chaman means paneer, and kaliya refers to a yellow gravy. Chaman kaliya is a paneer preparation cooked in milk, laced with the flavours of fennel, cardamom, and saffron. Unlike most Indian paneer dishes that rely on a spiced tomato base, this version is mild, creamy, and spiced only with whole aromatics and fennel.
Ingredients: kidney beans, turnips, mustard oil, spices
Rajma gogji, red kidney beans cooked with turnips, is a winter dish and a clear winner on the Kashmiri Pandit table. It is not the same as the Punjabi rajma masala that most people know. The lack of onion, garlic, or tomato makes the gravy thinner and more spice-based.
Ingredients: green tea, milk, salt, baking soda
Kashmiri tea is a unique chai made from green tea, salt, baking soda, and milk. What makes it special is not only the creamy flavour, but a beautiful pink colour formed naturally through a chemical reaction. Sheer chai is also known as noon chai or pink tea, and the word ‘noon’ means salt.
Ingredients: green tea, saffron, spices, nuts
Kashmiri Kahwa is a famed green tea from the Kashmir valley, known for its striking gold hue and use of spices, in particular saffron. It is particularly popular among the Kashmiri Pandit community and is known to support digestion, boost skin glow, reduce stress and increase immunity.
Ingredients: dry fruits, paneer, ghee, sweetener
This one’s a dessert, a rich mix of dry fruits and fried cheese, traditionally served warm. It is made by boiling the cheese and nuts in a spiced, sweet syrup. It is preferred during winter because of dry fruits, which help ward off the cold and keep the body warm.
In a world of evolving food trends, Kashmiri Pandit cuisine remains timeless, offering a rare example of how minimal ingredients can produce extraordinary flavours. Across generations, the community has preserved a cooking style that avoids onion, garlic, and tomato, yet creates deeply aromatic and flavour-rich dishes like the everyday haak, rajma gogji, to richer rogan josh and noon chai.
Kashmiris typically eat fresh bakery bread like girda or bakarkhani with butter, along with salty pink noon chai. Sometimes richer dishes like harissa or kebabs are also eaten in winter.
