🟡 Jain Recipes | Indian Cooking School

Jain cooking avoids all root vegetables (onion, garlic, potato, carrot, radish, beetroot, turnip) because harvesting them kills the entire plant — a fundamental Jain principle of non-violence extended to food. The result is a cuisine that has developed extraordinary creativity within constraints: asafoetida (hing) substitutes for the garlic-onion flavour base, and the absence of root vegetables forces focus on above-ground vegetables, dairy, and legumes.

Recipes coming 2026

Individual recipe pages are being built now

Each recipe will include the full method, science commentary on every step, failure prevention notes, and links to the relevant Art of Cooking technique page. The categories below show what's coming.

Recipe categories

What's coming

Jain Dal

Tarka Dal without onion/garlic (hing substituted), Moong Dal Jain

The hing tadka produces surprisingly good depth

Browse recipes →

Jain Sabji

All above-ground vegetables — Gobi, Peas, Capsicum, Green Beans

Dry and wet preparations without root vegetables

Browse recipes →

Jain Curry

Paneer and vegetable curries — hing and ginger based masala

Onion-free gravy that still has body from tomato

Browse recipes →

Jain Sweets

Most Indian sweets are naturally Jain-permitted

Sugar, dairy, and grain-based sweets

Browse recipes →

Connected to

Art of Cooking

Every recipe links to its technique page — learn the skill behind the dish

Science Academy

The science behind every technique used in these recipes

Failure Clinic

When the recipe goes wrong — 185 articles on exactly how to fix it

Food Atlas

Where each dish comes from — the regional story behind the recipe

Common Questions

When will individual recipe pages be ready?

Recipe pages are being built now and will be added progressively through 2026. Each recipe page will include the full method, science commentary, dietary variants, and cross-links to technique and failure clinic pages.

Will all dietary categories have the same recipes?

Most dishes will have variants across multiple dietary categories. Butter chicken will have a vegetarian (paneer makhani) version, a vegan version (cashew cream), and notes on Jain and sattvic adaptations.

How are recipes connected to the Art of Cooking?

Every recipe page links to the technique page that is most central to that dish. A biryani recipe links to the dum cooking technique and the biryani system technique. Butter chicken links to bhuno masala. You can learn the technique first or discover it through the recipe.