No-Cook Turmeric Golden Paste Recipe (for Curries & Lattes)

Want to make a flavourful Indian curry or a healthy golden latte in a flash? This turmeric paste is the time-saver hack you were looking for. You can prepare it in minutes, store it in a pot, and have it at the ready for all your tasty creations!

Usually made from pureed turmeric root, turmeric paste has an intense yellow-orange, almost golden colour. And that’s why it’s also known as golden paste.

Golden paste is an amazing multi-tasker you can use for practically any dish, from curries, marinades, and stir-fries to smoothies, bakes, and hot drinks like herbal teas and lattes.

Simply dissolve half or one teaspoon of the paste in sizzling oil, simmering broth, or hot milk and enjoy.

Our turmeric paste recipe is inspired by traditional Indian curry pastes, where ingredients like ginger root and spices are pounded in a mortar into a raw mix.

To keep things easy, we used a blender for blitzing and turmeric powder instead of the fresh root.

Turmeric powder is made from the dried ground root, and it’s cheaper, easier to find, and just as healthy!

So, we whizzed turmeric with a splash of water, a dash of salt, and ginger root for bulk, flavour, and extra goodness.

Then, we round it all up with black pepper and a few teaspoons of coconut oil. Pepper and fats are two well-known absorption boosters of curcumin, turmeric’s active ingredient!

And to thicken the paste, we simply strained it through a sieve to remove excess juices — no cooking needed.

This makes the recipe faster and also helps retain lots of precious antioxidants!

Yes, turmeric and ginger are laden with antioxidants and also have powerful anti-inflammatory effects.

So, just a teaspoon of this turmeric paste delivers a mighty health boost while infusing your dishes with flavour!

Frequently Asked Questions

Step 1

Rinse the ginger root well to help soften its outer skin and use the tip of a spoon (or a knife or vegetable peeler) to peel it off.

Then, roughly chop the peeled ginger into chunks.

Step 2

Add the prepared ginger to a powerful blender or food processor and tip in the turmeric powder, salt, black pepper, and water.

Blitz all the ingredients long enough to make a deep-orange golden paste that’s as smooth as possible.

You may have to scrape the sides of the blender bowl with a spatula a few times between pulses to collect any large ginger bits.

At this point, the turmeric paste will be a bit runny as you used water (but water helps blend it smoothly).

Step 3

To remove excess water and make the paste more compact and scoopable, strain the turmeric paste through a fine-mesh sieve, squeezing the pulp with the back of a spoon.

Collect the juice in a cup, but don’t throw it away! You can dilute it with lemon and orange juice to make a healthy turmeric shot.

Step 4

Transfer the golden paste to a cup or jar, add melted coconut oil, and stir until it’s fully incorporated.

Coconut oil contains fats which help boost turmeric’s absorption, but it’s optional.

Step 5

Store the golden paste in a sealed jar or container in the fridge for up to 10 days.

To use it, stir 1/2 to 1 ½ teaspoons of turmeric paste into curries, soups, and sauces or hot drinks like teas and lattes.

Tips

• The default ingredients yield two small pots of paste: you can use one for making lattes, adding cinnamon, clove, and cardamom to taste, and the other for preparing curries adding garlic, chillies, and cumin.

• You can freeze the paste for 3 months in ice cube trays: fill each ice cube cell with a teaspoon of paste and top it up with water.