North Indian Food: A Complete Guide to Dishes, Regions, and Traditions

Order “Indian food” in London, New York or Sydney and what arrives is usually North Indian food: butter chicken, naan, dal makhani, palak paneer. Those dishes come from a fairly small part of the north, mainly Punjab, Delhi and the old Mughal and Awadhi kitchens. The full picture runs from the saffron and fennel of Kashmir to the dried berries and beans of the Rajasthan desert, and this guide goes through it region by region.

What makes North Indian food different?

Three things run through most North Indian cooking. The first is wheat, eaten as roti, paratha, naan and kulcha, which is why bread rather than rice is the everyday staple across much of the north. The second is dairy: ghee for cooking, curd on the side, paneer in the curries, and cream and butter in the richer restaurant dishes. The third is a cooked base of onion, ginger, garlic and tomato, seasoned with ground spices such as coriander, cumin, turmeric and garam masala.

Compare that with South Indian food, which leans on rice, coconut, tamarind and a tempering of mustard seeds and curry leaves. North Indian gravies are generally thicker and milder in sourness; southern ones tend to be thinner and tangier.

The other signature is the tandoor, a clay oven heated with charcoal or wood that can go well above 400 degrees Celsius. Tandoori chicken, seekh kebabs, naan and tandoori roti all come out of it. The tandoor is often said to have come from Central Asia, but clay ovens of a similar kind have been found at Harappan sites, so its history in India is older than the usual story suggests. In Punjab villages the shared community tandoor, where families brought their dough to be baked, was part of daily life.

Punjabi food: the dishes you already know

Punjabi cooking is the most familiar face of North Indian food abroad. It is generous, heavy on ghee and butter, and made for big shared meals.

Butter chicken is usually traced to the Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi in the 1940s, where tandoori chicken was simmered in a tomato gravy with butter and cream. Dal makhani, whole black urad dal and rajma cooked slowly for hours and finished with butter and cream, is credited to the same kitchen.

Sarson ka saag with makki di roti, mustard greens cooked down with spinach or bathua and eaten with maize flatbread, is the winter meal of rural Punjab, best with a lump of white butter and a glass of lassi. Rajma chawal, kidney beans in an onion and tomato gravy with rice, is the standard Sunday lunch in many Punjabi homes.

Chole bhature, spiced chickpeas with puffed fried bread, is a Delhi weekend breakfast. Amritsari kulcha is a crisp leavened bread stuffed with spiced potato or paneer, baked in a tandoor and served with chole.

Mughlai cooking: biryani, kebabs, nihari and korma

Mughlai food developed in the kitchens of the Mughal court and the nobility, mixing Persian and Central Asian cooking with Indian ingredients. Its marks are slow cooking, saffron, dried fruit and nuts, and gravies thickened with ground almonds, cashews or khoya.

Biryani is its best known dish: marinated meat layered with long-grain rice and cooked in a sealed pot. Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad each have their own style, and arguments about which is best are a national pastime.

Kebabs come in many forms. Seekh kebabs are minced meat grilled on skewers; shami kebabs are pan-fried patties of minced meat and chana dal. Nihari, a slow-cooked meat stew traditionally eaten at breakfast, is associated with Old Delhi and Lucknow. Korma is meat braised in a rich gravy of curd, nuts and spices.

Awadhi food from Lucknow

Under the Nawabs of Awadh in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Lucknow built one of the most refined food cultures in India. Awadhi cooking is known for subtle, layered spicing and for dum, the technique of sealing a pot with dough and cooking slowly in its own steam.

The galouti kebab, made from finely minced meat soft enough to eat without chewing, is the city’s most famous dish, and the Tunday Kababi shop in the old city is the name most people know. Lucknowi biryani is lighter and more fragrant than the Hyderabadi version. Sheermal, a saffron-flavoured, slightly sweet flatbread, is the usual partner for kebabs.

Kashmiri food and the wazwan

Kashmiri cooking stands apart from the plains. Kashmiri Pandit cooking in particular avoids onion and garlic, relying instead on fennel, dry ginger powder and asafoetida, while Kashmiri Muslim cooks use shallots and garlic more freely. Both use mustard oil, curd, and dried Kashmiri chillies, which give colour without much heat.

Rogan josh is the best known Kashmiri dish: mutton cooked slowly in a red gravy, its colour from Kashmiri chillies and its warmth from spices such as cardamom and fennel. Yakhni is mutton in a curd-based gravy, and dum aloo, Kashmiri style, is small potatoes cooked in a spiced yogurt gravy.

The wazwan is the multi-course feast served at Kashmiri weddings, cooked by specialist cooks called wazas over many hours. It is served on a large copper plate, the trami, which four guests share.

Rajasthani food from the desert

Rajasthani cooking grew up with little water and few fresh vegetables, so it relies on pulses, gram flour, dried ingredients and food that keeps well.

Dal baati churma, hard baked wheat balls eaten with dal and a sweet crumbled churma, is the classic Rajasthani meal. Ker sangri is a dry dish of desert berries (ker) and beans (sangri) from the khejri tree. Gatte ki sabzi is gram flour dumplings in a spiced curd gravy. Laal maas, mutton in a fiery red chilli gravy, comes from the Rajput tradition of game cooking.

North Indian sweets

Every town has its halwai, and the mithai counter is a world of its own.

Gulab jamun: fried balls of milk solids in rose-scented sugar syrup
Rasgulla and rasmalai: chhena sweets from eastern India that are now sold all over the north
Kaju katli: diamond-shaped cashew fudge, the standard Diwali gift box
Jalebi: crisp fried spirals soaked in syrup, best eaten hot, often with rabri
Peda: dense milk fudge, the most famous coming from Mathura
Ghevar: a Rajasthani disc-shaped sweet with a honeycomb texture, made during the monsoon festival of Teej

North Indian street food, city by city

Every North Indian city has a snack its people will defend. Delhi has aloo tikki, chole bhature and endless varieties of chaat. Amritsar has its kulcha and pinni. Lucknow has kebab paratha. Kanpur has the laddoos of Thaggu ke Laddu. Chandigarh is often mentioned for kadhai chicken.

Street food is also where you see the seasons. Gajar ka halwa and sarson ka saag turn up in winter, cold kulfi and lassi in summer, and the monsoon brings pakoras and ghevar.

How North Indian food became “Indian food” abroad

After Partition, and through the 1950s and 1960s, migrants from Punjab settled in large numbers in Britain and later in North America. Restaurants serving tandoori dishes, butter chicken and naan spread with them. In Britain many “Indian” restaurants were in fact run by Bangladeshi, mainly Sylheti, owners, but the menu they standardised was still largely North Indian and Mughlai. The food suited Western tastes: rich, not too sour, and eaten with bread.

That is a narrow view of Indian cooking, but it is how most of the world first met it. If you want to go further than butter chicken at your next North Indian meal, look for the regional dishes: sarson ka saag in winter, a Kashmiri yakhni, or a Rajasthani thali with ker sangri and gatte.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which states make up North Indian food culture?

Usually Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Jammu and Kashmir. Each has its own tradition, though Punjabi and Mughlai food dominate outside India.

Is Mughlai food the same as Punjabi food?

No. Mughlai food comes from court kitchens and is defined by slow cooking, nuts, cream and saffron. Punjabi food is more everyday and robust, built around the tandoor, hearty dals and greens.

What is in a North Indian thali?

Usually two or three rotis, dal, one or two vegetable dishes, curd, rice, salad, pickle, papad and a sweet. A Punjabi thali leans towards paneer and rich gravies; a Rajasthani one will include dal baati and gatte ki sabzi.

Is North Indian food mostly vegetarian?

Both are strong. Many families across the north, including Marwari and Jain households, eat only vegetarian food, while Mughlai, Awadhi and Kashmiri cooking and much Punjabi cooking include meat.