After I wrote the fruit Chaat recipe, many people asked me about the Chaat Masala, it’s ingredients and where to get it. Chaat Masala has a tangy, slaty, spicy and tart flavor. It’s a mix of different Indian spices such as black pepper, salt, cumin, aniseed, coriander seeds, cloves, ginger, lemon and dried garlic.

There are different type of readily available chaat masalas out there that you can buy. Some of the them are MDH Chunky Chat Masala, Badshah Chaat Masala and Shan Chaat Masala. Bigger cities usually have Indian grocery stores, so its easier to get the pre made and packed masala from those stores as compared to collecting the ingredients to make it at home. But if your city does not have any Indian grocery stores, then try big grocery stores, they have started to carry some of the Indian spices. Another thing you can do to buy readymade Chaat Masala is to get it from online, Amazon has some of these Indian spices at very  good price.

In my opinion, I'ts better to just buy it ONLINE then spending so much time trying to make it. I just did a search and they had Chaat Masala. If you can’t even find it there, then I am going to give you the Chaat Masala recipe, so that you can just buy the ingredients and make it at home.

Ingredients:

Ground Cumin: I Tsp
Ground Black Pepper: 1 Tsp
Salt: 1 Tsp
Coriander: 1Tsp
Ground aniseed: 1Tsp
Ground clover: ½ Tsp
Ground Dried Ginger: 1 Tsp
Dried Ground Garlic: 1 Tsp
Ground Red Pepper: 2 Tsp (or according to your taste)
Dried Mango Powder: 2 ½ Tbsp
Dried mint leaves: ½ Tbsp
Ground Carom seeds: ½ Tsp

Try to find these ingredients already grounded. If you can’t find these ingredients already grounded, you can simply get them and ground them on your own. Just mix the spices and then use it. One thing to keep in mind is that, after you mix them up, store it in a tightly closed bottle at a cool place to keep the aroma and full flavor. You can also tweak the recipe to your taste, especially the salt and pepper part, because you can’t get it right unless you do it according to your taste. Another thing to keep in mind is that, you can use ½ Tbsp of mixed spice for about a cup of fruit chaat, but again I am telling you less, because if you like it spicier you can add more later but you can’ take it out if you don’t eat very spicy.

This type of Chaat masala is good for fruit Chaats, Chana chaats and even for Aloo Chana Chaats. If you are using this for Aloo Chaat, use it a bit more to enhance the flavor. It’s really good to sprinkle on your chaats. Sometimes we all get tired of eating all the same salad dressings, one thing you can do is to sprinkle it on your salads, it sounds odd but it tastes really good. Actually it’s finger licking good and it’s funny that Chaat means “to lick” in Hindi. And Masala means ‘spices’, this is really finger licking good spice. It just enhances the flavor of many things, and I have been using a whole lot. A friend of mine had given me a box, I was using it not only for chaats, but I have been using it for salads as well. I told her to get me one more box just after a three weeks. She was surprised that I finished it that fast because she uses one box for like couple of months. We live kind of far from the nearest Indian grocery store, so she just gave me this recipe for it. It is very good.