Is Indian curry gluten-free? Often, if you know the four traps

Often, yes, with a few questions. A lot of Indian cooking is built on rice, lentils, chickpeas, vegetables and spices, and many curries contain no gluten ingredients at all. Plain dosa and idli, made from rice and lentils, are naturally gluten-free too (rava dosa is made with semolina, which is wheat).

The four traps

• The breads: naan, roti, chapati, paratha and puri are wheat.
• Hing (asafoetida): the powdered spice sold as “compounded hing” is usually bulked with wheat flour, and a pinch goes into many dals and curries. Ask whether the kitchen uses it, and which kind.
• The fryer: samosas are wheat pastry, and bhajis and pakoras are fried in oil that’s often shared. Some bhaji batters add wheat flour to the gram flour.
• The sauce: some restaurant curries are thickened with flour or built on a shared base sauce. Ask how the sauce is made.

What to ask

Ask whether the dish contains wheat flour or hing, whether the sauce is made from scratch, and whether fried starters share oil with samosas. Rice, dal and a tandoori dish marinated without flour are good places to start, but ask whether naan is cooked in the same tandoor.

Keep reading

• The Hidden-Gluten Watchlist: the 15 forbidden names and the ones to check
• Shared fryers and gluten
• Is rice gluten-free?
• Translation cards

Sources: Coeliac UK, EU Regulation 1169/2011, Codex Alimentarius (gluten-free = 20 mg/kg or less), and our own city guides. Last checked: 28 September 2026. We inform, we don’t diagnose: for medical questions, your doctor or dietitian has the last word.