Sri Lanka, the land of spices, is famous for its delicious food laden with rich spicy flavors. Spices are an essential part of the Sri Lankan food scene throughout history. All the vegan curries, side dishes, and short eats have a spice mixture of seasonings that will tickle the taste buds. Certainly, these essential spices and herbs give a nice flavor and aroma to Sri Lankan cuisine.
Mainly, Sri Lankans add chili powder and curry powder as the key ingredients to give an appealing taste to the curries. In addition to that, garlic, ginger, many other spices, and herbs add to the required amount. The combination of all these spices gives the authentic taste of Sri Lankan Food. Also, coconut is one of the main ingredients in Sri Lankan cuisine. Since coconuts are readily available in the country, it uses to make mild and creamy curries.
Here we are going to show you the most essential spices for Sri Lankan cooking. If you are going to cook a Sri Lankan meal, remember to add them to get the authentic taste. We hope you’ll enjoy preparing a delicious Sri Lankan meal with these spices.
1. Red Chilie
Red chili is one of the major spices and indispensable items for Sri Lankan cooking. It uses to give spicy punch and hotness into a dish. Sri Lanka cultivates several varieties of chilies. They use in Sri Lankan cuisine in almost any dish, according to the required hotness. Some Sri Lankans like spicy food, therefore adding an extra crunch using both red and green chilies.
Pieces of red chilies or red chili powder add to only the required amount to make a tasty dish. As an example, chili powder isn’t added to most of the yellow curries, while it is essential for meat and fish dishes. The nice spicy flavor of meat and fish curries comes from chili powder. If you don’t tolerate spiciness, remember to order less spicy fish or meat dishes in Sri Lankan restaurants.
2. Coriander
Coriander is included in Sri Lankan curry powder as the major ingredient. It is a staple in Sri Lankan cuisine for centuries. Since coriander has a mild, fragrant aroma, it uses to flavor vegan dishes. When it is roasted it gives a deep aroma, where it is essential to taste the meat dishes.
This delicate herb grows in most of the vegetable gardens, where its leaves utilize to garnish salads and side dishes. Coriander seeds are highly popular in Sri Lanka for their medicinal properties against cold and flu. Corriander seeds and ginger boil together to make a drink, where it is quite useful to boost immunity against cold.
3. Cumin
Cumin is a key flavoring medium in Sri Lankan curry powder. It uses for both roasted and unroasted curry powders. Toasting the cumin seeds release their aroma and sweet-spicy flavor. Therefore, it is an essential spice to make roasted curry powder. Cumin is an excellent accompaniment for both vegetable curries and meat-based dishes.
4. Fennel
Fennel is another key ingredient in Sri Lankan curry powder. It uses for both roasted and unroasted curry powders. It has many health benefits, whereas roasted fennel is a home remedy to cure stomach aches.
5. Turmeric
Turmeric used in Sri Lankan cuisine throughout history. It is the spice that gives Sri Lankan curries its distinct golden yellow color. Most importantly, this appealing color enhances the appearance of the dish a lot. Therefore, it is essential to cook mild curries such as potato curry.
Turmeric is one of the most marvelous medicinal spices in Sri Lanka. Since it has a disinfecting power, Sri Lankans use it in almost all curries including fish and meat dishes. As well, it is a wonderful spice that use to make delicious savory rice dish, yellow rice.
As Turmeric needs a warm climate with plenty of rainfall, it is abundant in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka produces one of the best Turmeric products in the world with high curcumin percentage of 5%. It uses for both cooking and for home-made remedies in traditional medicine.
6. Black Pepper
As same as Ceylon Tea, Ceylon Black Pepper is a famous spice in all corners of the world. It is one of the most famous Sri Lankan products in the global market. Black Pepper produced in Sri Lanka has high amounts of piperine, which gives it’s a strong spicy flavor. Therefore, Sri Lanka is world-famous as a high-quality black pepper producer.
Black pepper considers the king of spice, where its spicy flavor often lets it substitute for chilies. It is an important ingredient for the preparation of meat, fish, and seafood dishes as well as sambol, pickles, sauces, snacks and savory bites. In addition to flavoring, pepper has medicinal properties and use in natural treatment methods.
7. Cinnamon
Ceylon Cinnamon is a world-famous product and renowned for its notable qualities such as unique flavor, color, and aroma. It has been a major spice in Sri Lankan culture for years for its natural flavoring properties. It is a thin, pale brown cylinder of bark and is rather sweet and delicious in fragrance. Adding a piece of cinnamon gives a nice aroma to almost any dishes including vegan, meat, and fish dishes.
It is a versatile spice used for many purposes ranging from cooking, making bakery products, and flavored teas. This valuable spice can process into powder or essential oils, where they have exceptional medicinal values. Cinnamon has many health benefits to treat chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
8. Mustard
Mustard seeds are a widely used spice in Sri Lanka. They used to temper the curries, where these tiny black seeds give a strong fragrance when spluttering in hot oil. Adding mustard seed will enhance the taste and aroma of the dish.
Especially, mustards can finely grind and make a paste to add flavor to pickles and chutneys. The mustard spice mixture is essential to make a vegetable pickle call as Sinhala Achcharu. This is a wonderfully delicious authentic side dish in Sri Lanka.
9. Fenugreek
Fenugreek is an essential spice for cooking Sri Lankan curry dishes. Since it has a bitter taste, usually it roasted to reduce the bitterness. Fenugreek gives a thickening effect to vegan or fish curries. It gives a nice flavor and spicy boost to the taste of any dish.
10. Garlic
As one of the most essential spices in Sri Lanka, Garlic truly has broad culinary and medicinal uses. It is a widely used spice for both vegan curries, as well as fish and meat dishes. It is not only used as a flavorsome ingredient in cooking but also use to make garlic curry too. Garlic is an extremely versatile spice and it uses to add flavor to almost every Sri Lankan dish.
11. Ginger
Ginger is one of the most heavily used spices in Sri Lanka. It has a sharp peppery heat flavor and mild sweetness that gives a unique taste to the curries. Mainly, Ginger is used to cook meat dishes because it can tender and flavor meats. As well, it adds a perfect aroma to the dish.
Beyond its use as a spice, ginger is renowned for its health benefits to alleviate digestion difficulties and nausea. Other than that, ginger can slice and boil with hot water to make ginger tea, a flavorful tea in Sri Lanka. Thus, all Sri Lankan households have ginger plants in their garden.
12. Cardamom
Cardamom is a small seed pod with black seeds inside with a unique sweet fragrance. Call the Queen of Spices, it is the most expensive, valuable spice in Sri Lanka. It is often added to meat dishes and savory rice dishes, such as yellow rice to enhance the aroma and flavor of the dish.
Since Cardamom has an exceptional aromatic fragrance and provides an exotic flavor, it is further used in making sweets and desserts. It gives a mouthwatering, appealing aroma to the Sri Lankan desserts such as Watalappam. Even it can add to your afternoon tea to make a wonderfully refreshing cup of flavored tea.
13. Gamboge
Gamboge or ‘Goraka’ is an orange-colored fruit that has a sharp, sour taste. It is completely dried with salt, before adding to curries. This dried Gamboge can keep for several months without spoiling. Mainly, it is used to flavor and thicken the fish gravy. The addition of Gamboge paste gives an authentic, unique taste to fish curries.
One of the main Sri Lankan fish curries is Tuna Curry call as Ambul Thial. This fish curry is made by cooking tuna with plenty of spices and Gamboge paste. It can keep at room temperature for even one week, without spoiling. Other than giving a nice taste, Gamboge acts as a preserving agent and helps to keep the curry for a long time.
14. Curry Leaves
Curry leaves call as ‘Karapincha’ are a herb used to flavor almost all Sri Lankan curries. It is a common plant that can be found in any Sri Lankan home garden. As the name suggests, curry leaves are an excellent addition to curry dishes. Freshly plucked curry leaves give out a strong fragrance and add an indispensable flavor and aroma to the curries. As well, it uses to temper the curries making them an ideal companion for delicious curries.
Other than adding a nice taste to a dish, curry leaves have many health benefits and are used for medicinal purposes. Reportedly, it is excellent for controlling high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Curry leaves are most effective when freshly plucked, but it is possible to keep them in an airtight pack in the refrigerator for more than a week. This wonderful herb is an essential item for Sri Lankan cooking, where it can lift the flavors dish to new heights.
15. Lemon Grass
Lemon grass or ‘Sera’ is fresh tropical grass added as an herb in many dishes. Since the stalks and leaves have a vibrant lemon-like fragrance, it calls lemon grass. It has fragrant essential oils, where it releases a nice aroma similar to the odour of lemon during cooking.
The thick lower bulbous portion of the plant is the most aromatic part of lemon grass plant. It is sliced or used whole with the tall upper portion for cooking. Lemon grass harmonizes meat and savory dishes, making it one of the most widely used herbs in Sri Lankan cooking.
16. Pandan Leaves
The Pandan leaves or ‘Rampe’ have blade-like leaves with an intense aroma that makes them an ideal accompaniment for curry-based dishes. As well, it adds to make fragrant savory rice dishes, such as yellow rice. The fresh Pandan leaves can fill the entire kitchen with their exotic fragrance. It is a simple and effective means to add aroma and flavor to Sri Lankan dishes.
17. Nutmeg
Nutmeg or ‘Sadikka’ is widely available in Sri Lanka, as the soil is ideal for growing them. It is a major star in the spice world, where nutmeg is the oval-shaped fruit and the mace is the reddish webbing that wraps around the pit. Both of them are highly aromatic and have an intense spicy flavor. Nutmeg and mace are famous for their applications in desserts such as cakes and pies.
18. Cloves
Cloves are dried flower buds of the Clove tree. They have an incredibly intense aroma and warm spicy flavors. It uses to flavor and aromatizes meat or savory rice dishes. When it adds to meat curries or rice, it releases a nice aromatic fragrance and enhances the taste.
This spice is also famously used as a medicine for relieving toothaches or aiding with digestion difficulties. Sri Lankan cloves have rich quality oils and are processed to form cosmetics such as perfume, soap, and toothpaste.
19. Tamarind
Tamarind is a sour-tasting spice from a curved brown pod from the tamarind tree. The Tamarind pod has shiny dark seeds covered with sticky brown flesh. This sour taste flesh is used as a flavoring agent. It has both a sour and mildly sweet taste which adds a delicious fruity tartness to fish or meat dishes.
20. Vanilla
Vanilla is the second most expensive spice in Sri Lanka. It can buy as whole pods, powder, or vanilla extract. Besides being used for cooking, vanilla essence uses to give fragrance to cakes, sweets, and desserts.
To sum up, here we have shown the 20 essential spices for Sri Lankan cooking. When you are visiting Sri Lanka, remember to buy some spices as souvenirs from this land of spices. The best way to purchase spices in Sri Lanka is to visit the island’s various renowned Spice Gardens. There you can buy any of the spices or curry powders or just have a look at the spice plants and how they are growing. Wish you all enjoy the authentic Sri Lankan spices.!
Text by Magnificent Sri Lanka. Images from Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons, and Twitter. All copyrights reserved by original authors.
Great website! Clear explanation of the fantastic spices used in Sri Lankan cuisines. Thank you.
Thanks friend, Remember to try some Sri Lankan food during your visit to Sri Lanka.