Best Turmeric Powders for Cooking

For some, turmeric could be considered an acquired taste.  But for most people, turmeric is a mild and pleasantly earthy addition to almost any food. With respect to its medicinal properties, a quick review of the many health benefits turmeric provides usually convinces even the most ardent skeptics. Here’s our summary of the best turmeric powders for cooking and beverages based on our testing.

For individual product reviews, refer to the Reviews section of this blog.

Turmeric is an extremely common spice in Middle Eastern, South Asian and especially Indian food. It has a deep golden-orange hue and slightly earthy flavor that adds an exotic flair to almost any dish. However, turmeric is much more than just a flavor and coloring agent. Turmeric’s curcuminoid complex is a powerful antioxidant with a multitude of beneficial properties, not the least of which are the reduction of inflammation and the fight against age-inducing free radicals.

Even if your health is already tip-top you’ll almost certainly benefit from adding some of the best turmeric powders to your everyday food prep. If you are currently stricken with conditions such as arthritis or joint inflammation one would be well advised to ingest about as much turmeric as your dietary regimen can withstand. If the taste takes some getting used to you can mix it with ingredients like cinnamon, honey or coconut oil to mediate the flavor.

Turmeric goes well with savory dishes, stews, teas, shakes, smoothies…the list is almost endless. It also performs well as a meat rub. It goes without saying that turmeric goes with nearly every Indian dish imaginable, but we also like sprinkling it in milk-based beverages like shakes, on top of our eggs, and in making turmeric teas.

Turmeric powder is known mostly as a savory and healthful spice in a wide array of culinary applications, but it can also be blended with water or plant oils to produce a paste for external use in treating rashes, wounds and other skin irritations. See our article on Turmeric for the Skin to learn more.

The Turmeric Guru purchases turmeric powder by the pound and uses at least one full tablespoon every day in various recipes and beverages. You may read about the turmeric-infused diet that saved me from a five-year ordeal with an auto-immune death spiral in the About section of this blog.

As with any colorful natural substance, turmeric powder can stain just about anything it comes into contact with, such as your clothing, pots, countertops, and floors. So be careful when handling it in order to avoid yellow stains.

Although turmeric is nothing more than a natural plant, for some it might have an interaction with pharmaceutical medications. Just to be conservative, if you take any synthetic chemical drugs, we advise that you first check with your physician before beginning any high dosage turmeric protocols. Most people, however, are perfectly fine ingesting as much as they please.

Turmeric is rich in iron, potassium, vitamin B6, fiber and, of course, curcumin. Research has shown that curcumin performs better than Vitamin C alone in rebuilding and maintaining the human immune system. Throughout this blog, we discuss the importance of thorough analysis and precautionary measures which should be taken before purchasing and ingesting turmeric powder and have compiled reviews of some of the best turmeric powders for easy reference.