Taste of India Navrattan Sauce product reviews

These sauces in jar form have been consumed in our house for a while, so we were excited to see them come up on KIWIreviews. My husband and I have reviewed the three sauces we received together - as he does all the cooking in our house ( yes, I am very lucky! )

These sauces are great for packaging and information - they provide lots on the front - easy to read and decipher - and - as it is clearly shown, free from a lot of the " bad stuff " we are encouraged to stay away from - MSG, gluten, stabilisers, and additives. The different colours for each flavour makes grabbing the right one at the supermarket easy. They are easy to open and pour, and have the pouch on the back containing recipes and spices is very well thought out.

What intrigued and excited my husband was that this sauce was not tomato based, and what I loved was the high percentage of cashews - yum yum yum!! We also like that, as a vegetarian curry sauce, it is different to the others. This was the mildest of the three given to review, and like the others - the kids tried it too.

The flavour was good in my opinion - and even my fussy daughter ate and commented she liked it. For a mild sauce it is exactly that - simple flavours and mild. My husband complained - until I reminded him it was a MILD sauce. The cashew flavour was not there in the strength I hoped, so I did add cashews myself. Whilst I enjoyed it - the flavour just did not hit the spot for me with this one. I think for someone who is not a big curry lover this is a good compromise, and definitely a win with the children - so I would recommend for that, absolutely!

Normally I am a fan of rich, deep, spicy curries. I use them in the manner of Ayurveda - a style of homoeopathic health maintenance that utilises the chemical properties of food and spices to manipulate the body chemistry and metabolism to restore itself to balance and fight off ill health. Now, I'm no expert, but I do know that if I am running a fever or feel like I may have a cold, a good strong curry helps me fight off infection by raising my core temperature in a more stable and controlled way than letting a fever run does. Plus it causes a lot less brain-pain.

Still, sometimes a nice, soothing, subtle flavour profile is required when cooking for others who may not have burned out their taste buds during an adventurous few years at Uni. Or, when you have a fussy 6yr old who refuses to eat anything more 'spicy' than Marmite on toast. So, it was time to explore the Navrattan, as the self-proclaimed mildest of the flavours I was trying out from this brand. And, to my surprise and great delight, mild is indeed what it was, yet still with plenty of flavour and a wonderful creamy consistency to the sauce.

It also turned out to be a winner for another family member who is not a huge fan of the high number of tomato-based sauces I seem to prefer making or using. Having a flavoursome, non-spicy-hot, cream-based dish was a real treat for all of us, for various reasons. However, I am not a vegetarian - I am a proud omnivore with carnivorous leanings, so I added some sliced, pre-cooked sausages to the meal and to compensate for the lack of rice, since I forgot to buy some before starting the meal, I served this on a creamy potato mash. This was a total hit with the whole family, and has become my "poster child" for the sort of food I want to get the less adventurous friends and family members to try and eat more regularly.

Overall, while not my personal favourite on the taste front (as I said, I really do like the spicier dishes) it is certainly one I plan to have on hand for those times when I may need to cook for visitors and the family members with less-than-adventurous palates. It was so simple to use, it made me feel like a top chef despite having no idea how to make the sauce from scratch.

I have to say that this product (and the Taste of India range) has the best packaging I have seen and used for a ready made sauce to add to a meal! It has very bright and colourful packaging and an easy pour spout which is also the perfect size for when you are trying to rinse out the packet at the tap. It is easy to read and has a 'spiciness' rating that is easy to see and read. There is a small pouch on the back of the packet which has very easy to follow instructions on how to cook a meal using this product and there are pictures that go with each step. I love the fact that there are separate spice packets which mean that you are using some nice whole spices to fry up at the start of cooking this meal and it also means that you can add as much or as little of these spices that you want depending on how you like your flavor.
I used this product on a night where I didn't have much time or energy to cook dinner so I grabbed out a container of frozen veges that I had in my freezer from the week before and I just threw those into a pot with this sauce (following the instructions of course) and just had it as a vegetarian meal. We all really enjoyed this meal. It tasted great, my kids ate it well (which is the biggest test!), and it was quick and easy to make which was awesome!

I am not a huge curry eater but my husband loves curry and likes any chance to eat it. As always, KIWIreviews have offered us the chance to branch out from our usually meals and see what other things might suit our family. If I do have curry, butter chicken would be the one I would usually choose. I was quite interested in trying a vegetable based curry. I love vegetables and we often have plenty of options in the garden to put into such a meal. I was hoping that the kids would love the Taste of India Navrattan Vegetable Korma as it is a chance to prepare vegetables in a different way to normal. Alas, they didn't like it, so it was up to my husband and I to enjoy it.

As with the other sauces I tried in the range, I found the golden writing on the back of the pack very difficult to read. In fact I totally missed the comment at the top right hand corner on the back that stated that the sauce was suitable for 500g of vegetables or dried fruit. I had to open the zip locked bag at the back to find that out (which seemed very strange to have to do).

I found that the vegetables offered nice variety to having meat in the meal. It made for a much lighter meal. I think that I would have found it way too rich if I had added meat as well. Chickpeas could have gone nicely in there though. It seemed that there was very high canola oil content (9.4%) and that added with the cream (7.8%) wouldn't do the waist line too much good. It also made the sauce quite rich. For me it would certainly be an occasional option if I were to buy it again. The main ingredient in the sauce is actually water, in fact at least half of the mix would be water.

We prepared the Navrattan Vegetable Korma with two other meals from the same range as a mini banquet. We served it with rice and naan bread. It was nice to have some variety, especially as the other options were basically meat and sauce. My husband was ok with the spread, however I think that I needed some other plain food, e.g. steamed vegetables to go with the meal as it was rather rich.

A serious positive is that the sauce is made from real ingredients (even if there is a large amount of oil and cream) and there is no strange numbers or colours to bulk out the list of ingredients. Well done to Taste of India on this front.

Getting a few sauces at once can be a bit daunting, but at least I don't need to try and work out what we're going to have, just which sauce to try out. This dish was to be a 100% vegetarian dish since it was dinner with my mum, and the sauce already does half the job for you, being vegetarian friendly. I opted to use 'Casserole Mince' as the 'meat' and popped it in with the seeds and leaves, but opted out of using the spice mix, as it does state you can use as little or as much of the spice. When the sauce was simmering I gave it a try and felt just a little heat at the back of my throat.

I served it up with rice for four adults and three kids, and there was still enough sauce leftover to give to my mother for her lunch the next day, so bang for your buck right there. I got no hint of spice once it was on my plate and the kids all ate their dinner without complaint. Us adults agreed that there wasn't a huge bang of flavor, it was a creamy, light peanuty flavor but nothing that stood out. I'd get again to try with the spices in it but I think only is on special whereas my mum will happily buy it in the future.

I invited a group of curry-loving people over for dinner last night. We had a selection of Taste of India curries to try, so I let my guests pick which one we would eat that night. This one appealed to them, just based on the ingredients listed in the packet. The level of cashew nuts in the sauce was the most appealing to them, as they all like cashews and wanted to be able to taste them. They were also interested to try a curry that has no tomato in the sauce.

I cut up chunks of chicken, and then looked for the directions on the pack. There weren't any on the packet itself, but there was a cool little pouch on the side. I did struggle a little to open the pouch, but once I got it open we all got a bit excited. There was a little instruction booklet, a bag of leaves and seed pods and things and another of spices, on top of the sauce itself. We all agreed that the kit was very neat and would make the cooking experience that little bit more hands-on.

This sauce seems to be mainly for vegetables rather than meat, but as we had the chicken prepared, that is what we went with. The instructions were super clear, there are words and pictures and each step is numbered. They felt really clear and easy for any level of reader to follow. Plus the font is a decent size. I added the whole spices and the little baggy of spices to oil and the chicken. Once the chicken was browned, I added the sauce mix as well.

As the chicken sauce mixture cooked, it didn't smell very spicy. It smelt a little like a sweet gravy. But I kept reminding myself that without the tomato in the sauce it would smell different. I served this with long grain rice in a bowl each, and my friends picked up various naan and roti to share as well.

As we ate, they commented that they didn't feel they could taste the cashew as much as hoped, but the sauce tasted salty and there was a pepper type of heat to it. I could just make out the cashew flavour, but I have eaten straight cashew butter before so I know that creamy sweet taste that can be quite subtle. There was an onion taste and a bit of heat. It was perhaps too mild for us, and not as complex in flavour as we are use to. That could have been because of the lack of tomato.

That said, it was a good starter for someone who doesn't eat a lot of curry. I gave a little of the sauce to each child and both of them cleaned their plates, which I didn't expect based on past curry experience. I can't wait to try the other packets I have in the cupboard. However, I don't think the style of sauce this time suited us all. Still, the kids ate this, which is a win. So I guess we did find a sauce that my children would eat!