Vindaloo vs. Madras Curry Powder: How Do They Compare?

These two blends come from different histories and do different jobs. Vindaloo curry powder is made to season vindaloo, a dish from Goa whose name comes from a Portuguese dish of meat marinated in wine vinegar and garlic.¹² The three vindaloo blends compared below share chiles, cumin, black pepper, cinnamon and cloves.²³⁴ Madras curry powder is a British-era curry powder with chile added: the usual turmeric, coriander and cumin base, plus heat.⁵⁶⁷ Neither has a fixed recipe, and neither has a published heat measurement, so the common claim that vindaloo powder is always the hotter of the two can’t be checked.

Side by side

	Vindaloo curry powder	Madras curry powder
Made for	Vindaloo, a dish from Goa, India, influenced by Portuguese cuisine²	General curry cooking, with more heat than plain curry powder⁷
Name	A garbled pronunciation of the Portuguese carne de vinha d’alhos (Collingham)¹	Madras, the former name of Chennai⁸
Origin	The dish: Portuguese meat in wine vinegar and garlic, adapted in Goa with palm vinegar and local spices¹⁹	British trade: advertisements for “Genuine Madras Curry Powder,” often promoted as spicier than the Bengal and Bombay styles⁵
Core spices	In all three blends below: chiles, cumin, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves²³⁴	Coriander, brown mustard seed, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, black pepper, red chile flake, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger (World Spice)⁶
Turmeric	In one of the three blends below²	Yes; 19th-century recipes were heavy on turmeric and chile⁵⁶
Coriander and fenugreek	In two of three (Savory Spice, America’s Test Kitchen)²³	Yes, in World Spice’s blend and Dan Toombs’s recipe⁶⁷
Heat	Medium (Savory Spice’s own) to “fiery complex heat” (America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe)²³	World Spice rates its blend 2 of 5; Toombs says his can be as spicy or mild as you like⁶⁷
Color (editorial)	Red-brown where chiles and paprika lead and turmeric is absent	Yellow to orange, from turmeric plus chile
Vinegar	None of the three blends lists it; it goes into the marinade¹²³⁴	Not part of the blend
Official standard	None found	None for Madras; plain curry powder has a USDA purchasing minimum that names no chile¹⁰

The differences that change a dish

What the blend is built around

The vindaloo blends compared here differ widely, but five ingredients turn up in all three: chiles, cumin, black pepper, cinnamon and cloves.²³⁴ Collingham’s history explains the cinnamon and pepper: Goan cooks added tamarind, black pepper, cinnamon and cardamom to the Portuguese marinade.¹ Madras curry powder starts from the curry powder pool instead. The USDA’s purchasing specification lists turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, ginger and cardamom for plain curry powder, with no chile,¹⁰ and Toombs describes Madras curry powder as a blend like any curry powder that also has dried chiles in it for a spicy kick.⁷

Turmeric and color

Turmeric is in World Spice’s Madras blend and was prominent in the 19th-century Madras recipes Julia Fine describes.⁶⁵ Only Savory Spice’s vindaloo blend lists it; America’s Test Kitchen and Silk Road leave it out and use paprika with their chiles.²³⁴ Curcumin gives turmeric its yellow color,¹¹ and paprika’s red comes mainly from capsanthin and capsorubin.¹² So a Madras powder generally cooks up yellower, and a turmeric-free vindaloo powder redder. That is our reading of the ingredient lists; no source compares the colors.

Fenugreek

Fenugreek is in World Spice’s Madras blend and Toombs’s recipe, and in two of the three vindaloo blends.⁶⁷²³ PROSEA credits it with a characteristic curry aroma and describes the taste as strong, sweetish and somewhat bitter.¹³ A vindaloo blend without it, like Silk Road’s, will taste less like curry powder.⁴

Heat

Chile heat comes from capsaicinoids,¹⁴ and in both blends it depends entirely on how much chile, and which chile, the maker uses. The sources don’t support a fixed ranking:

Source	What it says about heat
Savory Spice (vindaloo)	Vindaloo spices tend to be quite hot; its own blend is closer to medium and “not as hot as typical vindaloo”²
Tony Jackman (the dish)	Vindaloo, “both in Goa and in Britain, is a hot curry”⁹
America’s Test Kitchen (vindaloo)	Árbol chiles, cayenne and paprika give “fiery complex heat”³
World Spice Merchants (Madras)	Heat level 2 of 5⁶
Julia Fine (Madras, historical)	Often promoted as spicier than the Bengal and Bombay styles⁵
Dan Toombs (Madras)	Can be made as spicy or mild as you like⁷

A widely repeated claim calls vindaloo the hottest curry powder. Collingham’s account suggests where that reputation comes from: in Britain, she writes, vindaloo became just another hot curry, its balance of spices lost under an excess of chiles.¹ That describes the restaurant dish, not a measured blend. No published heat measurement exists for either powder.

Where each came from

Vindaloo. Food historian Lizzy Collingham traces the dish to carne de vinha d’alhos, which reached India with Portuguese explorers in the 15th century.¹ India had no wine vinegar, so Franciscan priests made their own from palm wine, and local cooks added tamarind, black pepper, cinnamon and cardamom.¹ Chiles were themselves part of Portugal’s legacy, brought to India from the Americas.¹ Tony Jackman describes the same swap of palm vinegar for red wine.⁹ Savory Spice sums it up as a dish from Goa influenced by Portuguese cuisine.²

Madras curry powder. Britannica says curry powder was adapted by British settlers in India, while Indian home cooks prepare their spice mixtures, or masala, themselves.¹⁵ Fine places Madras curry powder in that British trade: Madras was home to one of the earliest English trading posts, one English cookbook of the period gives separate recipes for Delhi, Madras and Bengal curry powders, and advertisements for “Genuine Madras Curry Powder” multiplied.⁵ Atlas Obscura’s history notes that curry powder has never had a set combination of spices.¹⁶

So it is not accurate to call both blends European formulations of South Indian spices. Madras curry powder grew out of British trade; vindaloo is a dish from Goa, which Jackman notes was under Portuguese colonial rule, and the powders sold for it are blends made to season that dish.¹⁹²⁵

Can one stand in for the other?

Yes, with the heat adjusted. We found no published ratio in either direction, so both swaps are Method starting points.

Swap	Starting amount	Treatment
Madras curry powder for vindaloo powder	The same amount, plus cayenne to taste	Method
Vindaloo powder for Madras curry powder	Half vindaloo powder, half plain curry powder, then taste	Method

Madras in place of vindaloo. Our vindaloo curry powder page names Madras or plain curry powder with added cayenne as the closest stand-in, starting with the same amount and adjusting the heat. Savory Spice also suggests adding extra cayenne to its own blend for a spicier result.² Add a pinch of cinnamon and clove if your Madras blend lacks them, and remember the vinegar and garlic belong in the marinade either way.¹⁹
Vindaloo in place of Madras. Cutting the vindaloo powder with plain curry powder brings back the turmeric and coriander base and tames the heat. That is our suggestion, not a tested ratio. For other options, see Madras curry powder substitutes, which starts from curry powder plus 1/8 teaspoon cayenne per tablespoon.

Bloom either blend in fat before adding liquid. America’s Test Kitchen says ground spices added straight to liquid can taste bland and musty, and that they burn fairly quickly.¹⁷

When to reach for each

Vindaloo powder for vindaloo: meat marinated in vinegar and garlic, then cooked with the spices.¹⁹ Collingham notes that Christian Goan cooks were free to make the pork and beef dishes expatriates loved.¹ Savory Spice suggests about a teaspoon of its blend per pound of beef, pork, poultry or fish.² Silk Road says its blend can go into any recipe that calls for curry powder.⁴
Madras curry powder anywhere you would use curry powder and want more heat. Because heat varies by brand, start with less than the recipe calls for and taste; that is common practice, not a sourced finding.

What isn’t known

No published heat measurement exists for any vindaloo or Madras curry powder, so neither can be ranked as hotter.
No source gives a ratio for swapping one for the other.
A claim that restaurant vindaloo powder is simply Madras curry powder with extra chile circulates; no source we found supports it.
Whether Madras curry powder is used in Indian home cooking today is not addressed by the sources reviewed.

Vindaloo curry powder
Madras curry powder and Madras curry powder substitutes
Madras curry powder vs. curry powder, curry powder and is curry powder spicy?
Curry spices, Portuguese spices and too much curry powder?
The spices: cayenne pepper, cumin, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, turmeric, fenugreek, coriander

Lizzy Collingham, “Fired Up: The History of Vindaloo”, Saveur, 2014. saveur.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³
Vindaloo, Savory Spice, product page. savoryspiceshop.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶
Leah Colins, “Vindaloo Curry Powder”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2020. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹
Vindaloo Curry Powder, Silk Road Spices, product page. silkroadspices.ca · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Julia Fine, “From Delhi to Durban: The Many Homes of Madras Curry Powder”, Diaspora Co., 2022. diasporaco.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
“Madras South Indian Curry”, World Spice Merchants, product page. worldspice.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Dan Toombs, “Take your curries to the next level with homemade hot Madras curry powder”, Great Curry Recipes, 2015. greatcurryrecipes.net · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
“Chennai”, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩
Tony Jackman, “Throwback Thursday: The fascinating history of vindaloo”, Daily Maverick, 2023. dailymaverick.co.za · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Commercial Item Description A-A-20001C, Spices and Spice Blends, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, 2023. ams.usda.gov · Regulator ↩ ↩²
“Turmeric: Usefulness and Safety”, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, 2025. nccih.nih.gov · Regulator ↩
“Paprika extract”, Chemical and Technical Assessment, FAO/WHO JECFA, 2008 (rev. 2013). fao.org · Regulator ↩
C.S. Tawan and N. Wulijarni-Soetjipto, Trigonella foenum-graecum, Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA). uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩
Bosland and Walker, “Measuring Chile Pepper Heat”, New Mexico State University, 2010. pubs.nmsu.edu · Reference work ↩
“Curry”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2026. britannica.com · Reference work ↩
Rohini Chaki, “The Subversive, Surprising History of Curry Powder”, Atlas Obscura, 2019. atlasobscura.com · Publication ↩
“How to Bloom Spices”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2023. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩

Vindaloo vs. Madras Curry Powder: Goan Dish Blend vs. British Curry Powder