Chaat Masala (Indian Street Snack Spice Blend)

This spice blend is all you need to transform anything into a chaat, a type of street snack popular throughout South Asia. The foundation of a chaat dish is usually a starchy component, such as crisp puffed rice or fluffy lentil-and-rice dumplings. That base is then topped with anything from hard-boiled eggs to fried lentils to radiant, ruby-colored pomegranate seeds.

The real heart of chaat, though, is this spice mixture, which finds its way into every iteration, whether sprinkled liberally on papris, folded into the filling for bread pakoras, or stirred into chutneys and raitas by the spoonful. All on its own, this single spice blend adds salty, funky, spicy, and sour flavors to anything it touches. It's such an essential chaat flavoring that merely sprinkling it on sliced fruit or mixed nuts can conjure the chaat experience.

The components that make up chaat masala are best understood by the qualities each adds to the whole.

Funky and Salty: Kala Namak

The key element in chaat masala is pungent and funky kala namak, which also goes by the name of Himalayan black salt. Not to be confused with black lava salt or Hawaiian black salt, kala namak is a mined salt that is actually pink in color and owes its unique, eggy aroma to trace amounts of sodium sulfate, along with a few other impurities. On its own, the sulfurous aroma can be off-putting, but when skillfully incorporated into dishes, kala namak adds a bossy bit of savory funk. It is the backbone to chaat masala, with no real substitute.

It can be purchased in its most rustic form as large, dusty mahogany crystals, or you can find it ground into a fine, millennial-pink powder, ready to dissolve into any chutney. Besides its prevalence in chaat recipes and spice blends, it's traditionally used in savory buttermilk lassis and cooling cucumber raitas. It's also a staple in vegan cooking, making tofu scrambled "eggs" taste closer to the real deal.

Pucker Up: Green Mango Powder and Tamarind Powder

Every chaat packs intense, tongue-prickling pucker. You need a forceful sour punch to cut through the richness of deep-fried doughs and balance the sweet chutneys. It's the biting acid that keeps your mouth watering and taste buds wanting more. The tart element in a chaat can come from the addition of lime juice or diced ambarella, but a good chaat masala should also offer up plenty of acid.

Most often, chaat masala gets its sour and fruity punch from green mango powder. This tart spice is made from unripe mangos that have been sliced and dried before being ground into a fine powder. Many packaged chaat masalas also include citric acid, a shortcut to that Sour Patch flavor. I prefer a blend of green mango and tamarind powder for my chaat masala. Tamarind powder is made by drying the sticky pulp found inside the russet pods of the tamarind fruit. It offers up a pleasant astringency through the tartaric acid it naturally contains, which pairs well with green mango powder's sour-candy zing.

Bring on the Heat: Chiles, Black Pepper, and Ginger

The heat in chaat masala is a triple threat of capsaicin from Kashmiri red chile powder, piperine from black pepper, and gingerols provided by ginger powder. Kashmiri red chiles are mild and fruity, loaded with floral and citrus notes. The powder has become one of my go-to spices, offering up much more than just heat to whatever dish you add it to.

Some historians attribute the extensive use of spices in regions with hot climates to their antibiotic properties, which suppress the bacteria and fungi that spoil foods. It is a happy accident that we've also become attached to the way these spices get your endorphins flowing.

The Aroma Chorus: Cumin, Coriander, Fennel, Mint, and Ajwain

Cumin and coriander are the loudest spices in chaat masala, with fennel seeds, dried mint, and ajwain (which has an aroma similar to that of dried thyme) providing some background noise. Together, they add nutty, pungent, floral, citrus, woodsy, and refreshing aromas and flavors.

Mastering the Mix: How to Blend Chaat Masala

Although there are many pre-blended chaat masalas available online or at your local Indian grocery store, nothing compares to making your own blend. Even in ideal conditions—kept away from light, in an airtight container, in a cool space in your hot kitchen—ground spices will be at their peak for only about three months. After that, they quickly deteriorate into nothing more than mildly aromatic sawdust. This is because the aromatic compounds in spices are highly volatile, quickly dissipating like a puff of smoke; when the spices are finely ground, there's that much more surface area from which those essential aromatic compounds can escape. Whole spices keep more of those molecules locked away, remaining fragrant for up to a year and waiting to be released as soon as you pulverize them in your spice grinder or mortar and pestle.

The other benefit of making your own chaat masala is that you can tweak it to your personal preferences. Chaat is all about customization, and by blending your own chaat masala, you truly can have it your way. The main spices in chaat masala are kala namak, cumin, chile powder, and green mango powder; from that starting point, the possibilities are endless. Many traditional recipes use yellow chile powder in place of red; some include asafetida, and others use garam masala (another spice blend common in Indian cooking) as a jumping-off point. Every auntie has her own blend, often with a secret ingredient or two, so treat the recipe as more of a guide rather than a hard-and-fast rule.

Whether you've decided to try my chaat masala or experiment on your own, properly toasting the whole spices will bring out the best qualities from each one. To ensure even toasting, it's best to start in a cool, dry pan, roasting one spice at a time over medium heat. Fennel seeds toast at a different rate from coriander seeds, so you'll achieve optimal flavor by giving each one some special attention. Keep the seeds in constant motion in the pan, and roast them until they're warm to the touch and fragrant. Once they're toasted, remove the seeds from the hot pan to prevent them from scorching over the residual heat.

In a pinch, I've ground whole spices with a muddler in a pint glass, but a more traditional tool is a mortar and pestle. For larger quantities, I've found that nothing beats a high-speed blender. It can quickly yield a fine powder, and you won't have to sift out any husks or seeds gone astray. A spice grinder or blade coffee grinder also makes quick work of the task, though these often require processing the spices in batches.