I usually buy curry sauce in jars as I thought making my own was complicated. I’ve now realised it couldn’t be easier and is far cheaper if I make it myself! It also has the added bonus of being sugar free and uses less packaging!

Ingredients – Makes 4 to 6 servings

A 700g jar of Passata (or equivalent homemade version from unpackaged tomatoes)

2 tbsps of Garam Massala (Buy in bulk bags – look online or in local specialist food stores)

1 tsp of chilli powder. (Can be substituted with a fresh chilli) – use more or less depending how much spice you can take!

2 onions finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic crushed

6 tablespoons of yoghurt (find out how to make it from scratch here) 

Optional – Finely chopped/ grated veg of your choice e.g. courgettes, aubergines, carrots, mushrooms  

Method:

1. Fry the crushed garlic and onion in a pan 

2. Add your chopped / grated veg to the pan and continue frying until cooked to your satisfaction

3. Add the passata, chilli powder (or finely chopped fresh chilli) and garam massala to the pan and continue to cook

4. Finally add the yoghurt

5. Once cooked you can use straight away

6. If you have fussy eaters in your household you can puree the mixture so they can’t identify vegetables in the sauce!

7. Freeze any leftovers in portion sizes. This avoids defrost more than you need at one time!

I usually pay £1.70 for a 350g jar of curry sauce which is not organic. However, I buy 700g jars passata for under £1 from a local bulk organic wholesaler. I buy large bags of spices in a local shop, which works out cheaper by weight than spices from the supermarkets. Homemade yoghurt probably costs around 30p for a few spoons. I buy onions in bulk spending around £10 on 25kg of them which lasts us all year (read more here).

2 onions probably cost around 20p and we grow our own garlic, which doesn’t cost us anything (we now replant garlic from previous years – read more about how we started here)!

So all in all my curry sauce cost me £1.50 excluding spices. I’m not sure how much they cost, but let’s say 20p. So my curry sauce comes in at £1.70! The same price I normally pay but double the amount of sauce and better quality ingredients!

I made a chicken curry using this sauce and served it with cauliflower rice, but forgot to take a picture! I did manage to get a picture of the leftovers which I had in a salad another day though!