The Surprising History of Tomatoes in Indian Curries (and Butter Chicken)

THE OTHER day, while stirring a slow cooker full of butter chicken — the sauce thickening into that rich orange-red colour, the smell of garlic, ginger and garam masala filling the kitchen — I found myself thinking about one ingredient I’d tipped in without much thought: a tin of crushed tomatoes.

It felt ordinary enough. Practical. Almost expected.

But it struck me that this humble tin would have puzzled many cooks in older Indian kitchens.

Butter chicken, after all, feels deeply rooted in Indian food culture. Yet one of its signature ingredients is a fruit that didn’t even exist in India until a few centuries ago.

How did tomatoes — a New World fruit — become so central to Indian curries that many of us assume they’ve always been there?

It’s a fascinating reminder that recipes are never frozen in time. My butter chicken simmering away in the slow cooker isn’t just dinner; it’s the latest chapter in a much bigger story of migration, trade and adaptation.

Read on to learn about the history of tomatoes in Indian curries.

 

Affiliate note: Some of the books I used while researching food history are linked below. If you purchase through these links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, which helps support independent journalism at Jocelyn Magazine.

A fruit from far away

Tomatoes began their story far from India, in the Americas.

Long before Europeans arrived, Indigenous peoples in Central and South America cultivated tomatoes as part of sophisticated agricultural systems. Their wild ancestors grew in the Andes, but it was in Mesoamerica that tomatoes became an important food crop.

When Spanish conquistadors returned to Europe in the 16th century, tomatoes came with them.

At first, Europeans weren’t entirely sure what to make of them.

Because tomatoes belong to the nightshade family, some believed they were dangerous or unhealthy. For a while, they were grown mostly as ornamental curiosities — admired more than eaten.

But slowly, especially in southern Europe, tomatoes found their culinary footing.

Italian and Spanish cooks began experimenting with them, discovering their acidity, sweetness and depth.

From there, tomatoes travelled again — not by land, but by sea.

And eventually, those trade winds carried them to India.

Which means the red sauce in your butter chicken owes as much to Aztec farming traditions as it does to Mughal flavours.

How tomatoes reached India

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to bring tomatoes to India, most likely in the 16th century.

They introduced them alongside other now-essential ingredients like chillies, potatoes and cashews.

Their colonial footholds, particularly in Goa and along India’s western coast, became the first points of arrival.

Initially, tomatoes were mostly grown for Portuguese households, missionaries and colonial kitchens rather than local Indian families.

They were foreign, unfamiliar, and not immediately useful.

Later, British colonial trade helped spread tomatoes further inland, increasing both cultivation and availability.

By the late 19th century, tomatoes had become visible in Indian markets, but they still weren’t central to most home cooking.

That’s partly because Indian cooks already had an impressive toolkit for sourness.

Tamarind, kokum, raw mango, lime and dried fruits all brought acidity in ways deeply embedded in regional traditions.

The tomato still had to prove itself.

From “foreign brinjal” to pantry regular

In some Indian languages, tomatoes were originally described as a kind of “foreign brinjal” — a telling sign of how new and strange they seemed.

They looked familiar enough, but they weren’t part of the old foodways.

Early uses were cautious.

Tomatoes often appeared in small amounts, mainly to add tang rather than define a dish.

Traditional souring ingredients still held pride of place.

But tomatoes offered something different.

They brought acidity, yes — but also colour, body and a subtle savouriness that worked beautifully with spices.

Unlike seasonal mangoes or region-specific kokum, tomatoes could be cultivated widely and, over time, became increasingly accessible.

That mattered.

By the early 20th century, particularly in growing urban centres, tomatoes shifted from novelty to convenience.

They didn’t replace tradition.

They simply slotted into it.

That adaptability is probably why they succeeded.

The rise of the tomato-onion gravy

Much of what we now think of as “classic North Indian curry” is actually tied to restaurant culture.

In cities across northern India during the 20th century, restaurants and canteens developed efficient base gravies — versatile sauces built from onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and spices.

This standardised foundation could be adapted into dozens of dishes: paneer, chickpeas, lamb, chicken or vegetables.

It was practical and scalable.

But it also tasted good.

Tomatoes softened the edge of spices, added mild sweetness and created that rich red colour diners found appealing.

Compared with the sharper sourness of tamarind, tomato felt smoother and more universal.

Cookbooks, women’s magazines and later television cooking shows helped cement this style as “authentic”, even though it was relatively modern.

For many families, especially in older generations, tomatoes were still used sparingly with meat dishes well into the mid-20th century.

Their dominance is recent in historical terms.

And this is the culinary world into which butter chicken was born.

Butter chicken: a modern classic built on tomatoes

Butter chicken isn’t ancient.

It’s one of India’s great modern dishes.

Most food historians trace its origins to Delhi in the mid-20th century, where restaurateurs at Moti Mahal are credited with creating it by simmering leftover tandoori chicken in a buttery tomato-based gravy.

It was practical, resourceful and wildly delicious.

And tomatoes were central to it.

Without tomatoes, butter chicken would lose its signature colour, tang and silky richness.

They balance the smokiness of tandoori chicken, soften the spices, and form the perfect base for cream and butter to build on.

They also help rehydrate leftover roasted meat, which was the original point of the dish.

That’s the thing: butter chicken was born in a world where tomatoes had already become part of modern Indian restaurant cooking.

The tin of crushed tomatoes I use at home is simply today’s shorthand for that same style of gravy.

My slow cooker version is part of this same evolution — a home kitchen adaptation of a relatively young, tomato-rich curry tradition.

“In Indian kitchens, tomatoes are young, but their story is already centuries long.”

Bringing it back to my kitchen

So does using tinned tomatoes make butter chicken less authentic?

Not really.

If anything, it reflects the way Indian cooking has always evolved; absorbing new ingredients, adapting them and making them its own.

It’s worth looking around your pantry and noticing which foods feel ancient but are actually newcomers.

Tomatoes. Chillies. Potatoes.

All imports. All now indispensable.

The spices might be old. The story is not.

And next time you make a curry, or warm up naan on the stovetop, you might pause for a moment and imagine the journey those ingredients took, from the Americas, across oceans, into India, and finally into your own kitchen.

If you’d like to taste that story for yourself, try my slow cooker butter chicken and homemade-style naan recipes.

 

Sources & Further Reading

• Encyclopaedia Britannica – Tomato (plant and fruit history)
• Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson
• Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors by Lizzie Collingham
• National Geographic – articles on Columbian Exchange food migration

Hungry for more food stories?

If this article sparked your curiosity, the books listed above offer fascinating deeper dives into the origins of ingredients, empires and recipes that shaped our kitchens. They’re part cookbook, part history lesson.