Three Must-Have Vegan Indian Chutney Recipes

Sauces, condiments, dips, and chutneys can take a good vegan Indian meal and make it fabulous! They're easy to make, provide great flavor contrast to most dishes, and keep well. We hope you'll get inspired to give them a try! 

Here's what you'll learn about Vegan Indian Chutney in this article.

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1. What is an Indian Chutney?

2. Why would I make a Chutney recipe?

3. What can I serve a Chutney with?

4. Three Must-Have Vegan Indian Chutney Recipes.

What is a Vegan Indian Chutney? 

A chutney is a condiment or side sauce, commonly served with Indian cuisine. Chutneys are often made from fruits, vegetables, herbs, sugar, and vinegar. They add an intense flavor contrast to any meal. 

If you've read our Vegan Indian Cooking Guide you know that a variety of contrasting flavors are the mark of a fine Indian meal. No single dish stands alone. Each bite should be a mix of flavors and textures. 

Some Indian Chutneys are cooked and some are raw. Some are smooth and some are chunky. They can be sweets, salty, spicy, and sour. 

Why Would I Make a Chutney Recipe?

• Fame! Serving the right Chutney with a meal elevates you from family cook to Rockstar Chef! Your creativity can blaze with new chutney-meal combinations that knock people's socks off!
• Personalization! Chutneys add an intense flavor whose proportion the eater controls. Unlike the spicing used to make a dish, how much Chutney you add to a bite is up to you. A person can take it or leave it. Everyone likes to have a little control :-)
• Efficiency! You make them once and enjoy them several times. Chutneys store well and can be added to a wide variety of dishes, not just Indian recipes!  
• Fun! Chutneys are uncommon throughout much of the world and can, therefore, taste exotic.  Your meals will become a cultural and gastronomic adventure!

What Can I Serve Chutney With? 

Because we like world-fusion cooking (think gastronomic mash-up rather than a musical mash-up), we ponder which chutney might go with every meal we make. Here are some of our favorites:

• A simple lentil dal like our Creamy Coconut Lentil Dal comes to life when it's combined with a Spicy Tomato Achar and tangy Ginger Pickled Onions and scooped up with steamed barley. 
• No self-respecting samosa is eaten without samosa sauce. Our favorite Sunrise Vegetable Curry Samosas are perfect when dipped into our Lemon Lime Cilantro Mint Chutney.
• And in our humble opinion, Vegan coffee ice cream is transformed into an exotic plant-based dessert when drizzled with Tamarind Chutney. At our last dinner party on the beach, we got two thumbs up from everyone for this surprising combination! 
• We often slather morning toast with our  Spicy Tomato Achar, vegan cream cheese, and home-grown sprouts. 

Sunrise Vegetable Curry Samosas with Lemon Lime Cilantro Mint Chutney.

Three Must-Have Vegan Indian Chutney Recipes

Having a few distinct chutneys on hand gives you a broad spectrum of pairing options. We like to cover our favorite flavor spectrum of spicy, sour, and sweet chutneys. There aren't many meals at least one of these Indian Chutneys can elevate. 

Here are the top three Vegan Indian Chutneys we recommend for every household. They'll change your life!

1. Spicy Tomato Achar

Made with tomatoes, green chilis, curry spices, and tart Tamarind, this tomato chutney is spicy hot and slightly sour. When in a bind, you can use canned Fire-Roasted Tomatoes. You can also water down the heat by adding less chili pepper or increase it to fire alarm status! 

2. Lemon-Lime Cilantro Mint Chutney

We planted our garden for this chutney! Fresh mint and Cilantro combined with hand-squeezed lemon and lime juice makes this tangy samosa sauce a must-have. You can shift the cilantro and mint ratio to your taste. This chutney can be blended up in about 5 minutes. 

3. Tamarind Chutney

Our Tamarind Chutney is spicy, sweet, and infused with cumin. You can leave the spices whole for texture or grind them for a smooth sauce. It's an amazing samosa sauce and is a world fusion wonder with chocolate and coffee ice cream! It keeps about a month in the refrigerator. We're not sure if we can live without it. 

We hope you put on your rock star hat and get into your kitchen with these Three Must-Have Vegan Indian Chutney recipes and get ready to wow your friends and family as well as delight your own taste buds. 

*These make a wonderful gift-basket too!!! Put them in beautiful jars and nestle them in a basket with an exotic bit of fabric. 

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Written by Your Vegan Family 

Stacy and Markus live an adventurous vegan lifestyle and write articles about their experiences cooking global vegan cuisine, creating businesses, raising vegan kids, and traveling through more than 65 countries. They earned degrees in molecular biology and acupuncture, consulted over decades for healthcare companies and individuals, created businesses in Asian medicine, eco-tourism, cultural immersion, and taught yoga in myriad venues.

We’ve learned a lot from eating a plant-based diet for 25 years and are eager to share more with you. Learn more on our About Us page.