Homemade Curry Leaves Powder | Karuveppilai Podi

As promised in my previous Curry Leaves Chutney post, I am here with the homemade Curry Leaves Powder . I don’t have such a big Curry Leaves plant in my backyard or my mom but my Anni (Brother’s Wife) parents have few Curry Leave Plants in their farm so when I requested they had sent it immediately. Not only Curry leaves amma also collected Hibiscus Flowers, Moringa Leaves (Murunga Keerai) from our farm and much more. With the help of

anni she dried those, powdered and neatly packed as shown here. Also those several packets of Homemade Curry Leaves Powder , Chembaruthi (Hibiscus) Powder, Karisalankanni (Eclipta prostrata/ Bhringraj ) Powder , Turmeric Powder, Karupatti (Palm Jaggery) , Coriander Powder, Sambar Powder, Organic Brown Sugar and much more were sent by amma in parcel. I will be sharing later what I have made with those powders (refer pic below) in near future.

Now coming to Curry Leaves, we are going to discuss its health benefits and nutrition values (reference wiki).

• Health Benefits
  • Reduces Blood Sugar
  • Helps in Weight Loss
  • Good for Diabetics
  • Good for Eyesight
  • Stimulates Hair Grouth
  • Prevents Kidney Disorder
• Nutrition Value
  • Rich in Folic Acid
  • Vitamin A (Carotene)
  • Calcium
  • Magnesium
  • Phosphorous
  • Dietary Fiber
  • Chloride

All these natural medicinal benefits are honestly lying in your backyard. It’s not expensive or hard to prepare at home. Even tiny plant gives a decent amount of powder if not buy curry leaves from the store and do follow the simple steps provided here. Be patience to get it dry (in winter it may take little more days to dry). That’s it add the powder in your day to day cooking and get benefited. Here I have mentioned several ideas and recipe links to use

1. Homemade Curry Leaves Powder
2. Curry Leaves Rasam (Recipe Later)
3. Healthy Thogayal / Chutney.
4. Curry Leaves Idli Dosa Podi / Chutney Powder (Recipe Soon).
5. Applying Homemade Hair Oil (Details Soon)
6. Curry Leaves Rice ( Recipe Later)

Things needed to make Homemade Curry Leaves Powder

Fresh Curry Leaves
Salt Optional
Good Sunlight or Oven or Food Dehydrator
Good Strainer / Sieve
Food Processor / Mixie

Method

• Bunches of fresh curry leaves in Picture 1.
• Separate the leaves and sprig, discard the sprig.
• Soak the leaves in water for 15 minutes and wash twice or thrice as long as you see dirt in water.
• Drain the water, dry over cotton cloth for 30 minutes to absorb excess moisture.
• Make a bundle and press gently with the same cotton cloth to remove excess moisture.

• Pat dry over mat or cloth under direct sunlight for a day, once leaves turn pale and shrunk you can transfer it to shaded area.
• Or you can dry in hot sunlight till they turn crisp.
• Also you can dry under shade (takes long time) or use a food dehydrator, air-drying, oven drying and microwave drying methods for quick drying.
• When you touch you can feel its crispness also when you break in between fingers it makes sound, that’s the right indication.
• Once you reach that stage (Picture 2) you can powder it.
• If not you can warm in the oven at 200 F for 3- 5 minutes at regular interval and don’t burn it (can refer my Ajwain Leaves / Oregano).
• Once done using Mixie / Food Processor powder them (Pic 3) and sift using the tiny hole strainer to get fine powder out from it (Pic 4).
• The coarse curry leaves (Pic 4, I have used it in the chutney recipe) can be used directly in sambar / rasam or in chutneys.

• Or it can be powdered again, if necessary you can warm the coarse curry leaves and make it to a fine powder.
• Once done with it, you can add optional salt for longer shelf life and do store in air tight container at room temperature.
• I have enough quantity at Room temperature and remaining stored in the refrigerator for later use.

Notes

1. When done grinding, be sure to keep the lid on the jar to allow the powder to settle first or you will open up a cloud of powder :-).
2. Also while filtering do it slowly and if you can’t tolerate the powder cloud do wear face mask.
3. If they are dried up completely they powder well, you come to know here.
4. For me it stays good in room temperature for almost 6 months (winter) and in summer I take precautions and store in refrigerator.
5. If you get Crystal salt , dry fry a bit in pan then mix it well with the fine curry leaves powder (this ensures long shelf life).
6. In the same way you can powder moringa leaves (murunga keerai will be adding the picture soon) and Hibiscus / Sembaruthi Flower as shown in the above pictures.

Will be sharing the recipes for Moringa Leaves Powder and Hibiscus Powder in near future, if interested bookmark this link for future reference. Thank you.

Recipe Card

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Homemade Curry Leaves Powder

Learn to make Curry Leaves Powder at home.

Author: Sangeetha Priya

Ingredients

Things needed to make Homemade Curry Leaves Powder

• Fresh Curry Leaves
• Salt Optional
• Good Sunlight or Oven or Food Dehydrator
• Good Strainer / Sieve
• Food Processor / Mixie

Instructions

1. Bunches of fresh curry leaves in Picture 1.
2. Separate the leaves and sprig, discard the sprig.
3. Soak the leaves in water for 15 minutes and wash twice or thrice as long as you see dirt in water.
4. Drain the water, dry over cotton cloth for 30 minutes to absorb excess moisture.
5. Make a bundle and press gently with the same cotton cloth to remove excess moisture.
6. Pat dry over mat or cloth under direct sunlight for a day, once leaves turn pale and shrunk you can transfer it to shaded area.
7. Or you can dry in hot sunlight till they turn crisp.
8. Also you can dry under shade (takes long time) or use a food dehydrator, air-drying, oven drying and microwave drying methods for quick drying.
9. When you touch you can feel its crispness also when you break in between fingers it makes sound, that’s the right indication.
10. Once you reach that stage (Picture 2) you can powder it.
11. If not you can warm in the oven at 200 F for 3- 5 minutes at regular interval and don’t burn it (can refer my Ajwain Leaves / Oregano).
12. Once done using Mixie / Food Processor powder them (Pic 3) and sift using the tiny hole strainer to get fine powder out from it (Pic 4).
13. The coarse curry leaves (Pic 4, I have used it in the chutney recipe) can be used directly in sambar / rasam or in chutneys.
14. Or it can be powdered again, if necessary you can warm the coarse curry leaves and make it to a fine powder.
15. Once done with it, you can add optional salt for longer shelf life and do store in air tight container at room temperature.
16. I have enough quantity at Room temperature and remaining stored in the refrigerator for later use.

Recipe Notes

1. When done grinding, be sure to keep the lid on the jar to allow the powder to settle first or you will open up a cloud of powder :-).

2. Also while filtering do it slowly and if you can’t tolerate the powder cloud do wear face mask.

3. If they are dried up completely they powder well, you come to know here.

4. For me it stays good in room temperature for almost 6 months (winter) and in summer I take precautions and store in refrigerator.

5. If you get Crystal salt , dry fry a bit in pan then mix it well with the fine curry leaves powder (this ensures long shelf life).

6. In the same way you can powder moringa leaves (murunga keerai) as shown in the above picture.

PS :- I am not a doctor or nutritionist or sponsor of anything mentioned here in this post, Just sharing my thoughts and benefits that happened to us.