7 Sri Lankan Curries to Try, and How Rice and Curry Works

Rice and curry is the everyday meal of Sri Lanka, and it is not one curry with rice: it is rice surrounded by three to eight separate side dishes, chosen to balance each other. The 7 curries below are the ones worth ordering by name, from the chicken curry on every menu to a curry made from jackfruit seeds.

I lived in Sri Lanka for three years and ate rice and curry most days of them, and I still had not tried everything. What follows is what each of these curries actually is, how it is cooked, whether it is vegetarian, and where it sits in a meal.

What “rice and curry” means in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankans use “curry” in two senses, and the confusion between them is why visitors think the food is repetitive. In the loose sense, a curry is any side dish that comes with rice: that includes leafy salads, deep-fried vegetables and relishes. In the strict sense, a curry is a dish cooked with spices in a gravy, thinned with water or with coconut milk.

A plate of rice and curry carries a minimum of three sides and often seven or eight. The combination is never random. A household lunch typically pairs a fish or chicken curry with a starchy vegetable or pulse curry in thick coconut gravy, a dry vegetable curry, a fresh salad and something fried, so that the plate covers wet and dry, soft and crisp, mild and fierce.

Three broad styles run through the whole repertoire, and knowing them tells you what a dish will taste like before it arrives.

1. Red curries (mirisata): heavy on chilli, usually water-based rather than creamy, and the hottest things on the table. A chicken curry is normally red.
2. White curries (kiri hodi style): built on coconut milk with turmeric, green chilli and curry leaves, mild and soothing. Egg curry and most vegetable curries are white.
3. Black curries: made with thuna paha, a dark roasted curry powder, which gives a deep, almost smoky flavour. Meat and firmer fish suit it.

The other thing to know is the curry powder itself. Sri Lankan kitchens keep two: unroasted powder, pale and mild, for vegetables and coconut-milk curries, and roasted powder, dark and pungent, for meat and fish. Substituting one for the other changes the dish completely, which is the single most common mistake in Sri Lankan recipes written abroad.

1. Sri Lankan chicken curry (kukul mas curry)

Kukul mas is the chicken curry you will meet on every restaurant menu and at every family table, and it is cooked in a water-based gravy rather than a coconut one. That makes it lighter than most Sri Lankan curries and hotter than most, because there is no coconut milk to soften the chilli.

There are dozens of versions depending on the spice mix, but two names come up again and again: kukul mas mirisata, the fiery red one, and kukul mas maluwa, the everyday one. Both use roasted curry powder, pandan leaf, curry leaves, cinnamon and a great deal of chilli.

The chicken always comes on the bone. Bone marrow gives the gravy body and flavour, and the habit goes back to buying a whole bird and using every part of it. Boneless breast was never an option in a Sri Lankan kitchen and the tradition has outlived the reason for it. Eat it with rice and a spoonful of pol sambol, the coconut and chilli relish that goes with everything.

2. Sri Lankan lentil curry (parippu)

Parippu is the dish that competes with chicken curry for the title of national favourite, and it is the easiest Sri Lankan curry to cook at home. Red lentils are simmered with turmeric, onion, garlic, green chilli, curry leaves and pandan, then finished with thick coconut milk until the whole thing turns creamy.

It was the first Sri Lankan recipe I learned, because there is nothing simpler. Most cooks temper it at the end, frying sliced shallots, dried chilli, mustard seed and curry leaves in coconut oil and tipping the lot over the top, which is what gives a good parippu its sweetness and crunch.

It is excellent with rice. It is better with roti, the Sri Lankan coconut flatbread, for breakfast. Parippu is also the reliable vegetarian option at any rice and curry counter, because it is always there and it is always vegetarian.

3. Sour fish curry (ambul thiyal)

Ambul thiyal is a dry fish curry from the south coast that keeps for days at room temperature, and the reason is a fruit called goraka. Goraka is Garcinia gummi-gutta, sometimes sold abroad as Malabar tamarind, and it is not the same thing as true tamarind, which Sri Lankans call siyambala. Recipes written outside the island swap one for the other constantly and the result is a different dish.

The fish, usually tuna, is cut into cubes and cooked with dried goraka, black pepper, garlic, cinnamon, curry leaves and just enough water to cook it away. What you end up with is dark, almost black, intensely sour and peppery rather than chilli-hot, with no gravy at all.

The keeping quality is not folklore. Goraka is strongly acidic, the dish is cooked dry, and the pepper does the rest, which is how fishermen’s families preserved a catch on the southern coast before refrigeration. Ambul thiyal started as a Galle and Matara dish and is now sold across the country.

4. Sri Lankan egg curry (biththara hodi)

Biththara hodi is a hard-boiled egg poached in a coconut gravy, and the trick is that the eggs are pricked with a fork before they go in. The small holes let the spiced gravy into the white instead of leaving it sitting on the outside, which is the difference between an egg in sauce and an egg curry.

The gravy is a white curry: coconut milk, turmeric, green chilli, onion, curry leaves, pandan and a squeeze of lime at the end. Some cooks fry the boiled eggs briefly first so the surface blisters and holds the sauce better.

Egg curry is a lunch dish with rice and a breakfast dish with bread, and outside strict vegan households it is the other dependable meat-free option on a rice and curry plate.

5. Sri Lankan ambarella curry

Ambarella curry is a curry made from fruit, which is where Sri Lankan cooking starts to surprise people. Ambarella is Spondias dulcis, known in English as the June plum or golden apple, a green fruit with crisp sour flesh and a fibrous stone at the centre.

Raw, it is eaten in slices with salt and chilli powder from street carts. Cooked, it goes into a coconut gravy with mustard, fenugreek, green chilli and curry leaves, and the sourness of the fruit plays against the sweetness of the coconut milk in a way nothing else on the plate does.

The texture is the other half of it: the flesh stays firm and slightly stringy rather than collapsing, so it holds its shape in the gravy. It is vegetarian, it is vegan, and it is the dish to order when you want to taste something you cannot get anywhere else.

6. Sri Lankan cashew curry (kaju maluwa)

Kaju maluwa is a curry made from cashew nuts, and it exists because Sri Lanka grows them. The nuts are soaked for several hours until they soften, then simmered in coconut milk with turmeric, green chilli, onion, cinnamon and curry leaves until they turn creamy and take on the spice.

Green peas often go in alongside, which is how you will usually see it served at a wedding or a special lunch. It is one of the richer things on a rice and curry plate and a small spoonful goes a long way against the sharper dishes.

Cashew curry is vegetarian and, without ghee, vegan. It is also the dish most likely to convert someone who thinks they do not like Sri Lankan food, because it is mild, creamy and immediately recognisable as good.

7. Sri Lankan jackfruit seed curry (kos ata maluwa)

Kos ata maluwa is made from the seeds of the jackfruit rather than the flesh, and it is the most unexpected curry on this list. Jackfruit is the largest fruit that grows on a tree anywhere in the world, running from about 4.5 to 45 kg (10 to 100 lb), so a single fruit yields a great many seeds.

The seeds are boiled, peeled and then cooked in a coconut gravy with roasted curry powder until they go soft and floury, somewhere between a chestnut and a new potato. They are worth using rather than discarding: jackfruit seeds are high in protein, potassium and iron.

Do not confuse it with the island’s other two jackfruit dishes. Polos is a curry of young green jackfruit, dark and meaty, often called the vegetarian answer to pork. Kos is the mature flesh. Kos ata is the seeds alone, and it is the one people who grew up in Sri Lanka get sentimental about.

How to eat rice and curry

Eat rice and curry with your right hand, and mix as you go. Take a little rice, add a little of one or two curries, work it together with your fingertips and lift it with your thumb. Nobody will mind if you ask for cutlery, and the food genuinely tastes different mixed by hand, because you control the ratio in every mouthful instead of letting a fork decide.

Three things belong on the plate alongside the curries. Pol sambol is grated coconut pounded with chilli, lime, red onion and Maldive fish, and it goes with everything. Mallung is finely shredded greens tossed with coconut and lime, which cools the plate down. Papadam adds the crunch. On a Sunday or at a celebration, look for kiribath, rice cooked in coconut milk and cut into diamonds.

At a rice and curry buffet, take small amounts of several things rather than a large amount of one. The point of the meal is the combination, and a plate of nothing but chicken curry misses it entirely.

Cooking Sri Lankan curries at home

Cooking Sri Lankan curries at home is straightforward once you have the four ingredients that Indian recipes will not cover: roasted and unroasted Sri Lankan curry powder, pandan leaf, fresh curry leaves and goraka. An Asian grocer will have the first three and a Sri Lankan one will have all four.

Start with parippu. It takes twenty minutes, it uses ingredients you can buy anywhere, and getting the tempering right at the end teaches you most of what the other curries need. Move on to the coconut-milk curries after that and leave ambul thiyal until you have found real goraka, because it cannot be faked.

If you want the recipes properly, Sri Lanka: The Cookbook by Prakash Sivanathan and Niranjala Ellawala is the one to get: a Sri Lankan husband and wife, Tamil from the north and Sinhalese from the south, with more than 100 recipes including kukul mas mirisata, pol sambol, hoppers and lamprais. A revised edition came out in February 2026.

Eating well without getting ill

Stomach trouble is the most common thing that goes wrong on a food-led trip, and in Sri Lanka it is usually water and ice rather than the curry. Drink bottled or filtered water, be careful with ice outside established places, and eat where the turnover is high: a busy lunchtime counter is safer than a quiet one, because the pots have not been sitting.

Travel insurance is the boring backstop, and gastro claims are the ones travel insurers actually pay out on most often. SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance can be bought after a trip has already started, which is the practical difference from most policies if you only think about cover once you are already eating your way around the island.

Sri Lankan curry FAQ

What is the most popular curry in Sri Lanka?

Chicken curry, kukul mas, is the most commonly eaten curry in Sri Lanka and appears on almost every menu, with lentil curry, parippu, close behind it. Parippu is on more plates overall, because it comes as a side with nearly every rice and curry meal whether you ordered it or not.

Is Sri Lankan curry the same as Indian curry?

Sri Lankan curry differs from Indian curry in three ways: it uses far more coconut milk and grated coconut, it flavours with pandan leaf, curry leaves and goraka, and it is generally hotter. Sri Lankan roasted curry powder is also darker than most Indian masalas, which is why the meat curries look almost black.

Which Sri Lankan curries are vegetarian?

Most Sri Lankan curries are vegetarian, including parippu, ambarella, cashew, jackfruit seed and the great majority of vegetable curries. Watch for two things: Maldive fish, a dried tuna flake used as a seasoning in pol sambol and some vegetable dishes, and ghee. Say “no Maldive fish” and the kitchen will understand.

How spicy is Sri Lankan food really?

Sri Lankan food is among the spiciest in Asia, and a red curry made for local tastes will be hotter than almost anything on a Thai or Indian menu abroad. Ask for it mild and it will still be warm. The coconut-milk curries and the mallung are the cool part of the plate, which is why they are there.

What is goraka?

Goraka is the dried rind of Garcinia gummi-gutta, a sour fruit used as a souring and preserving agent in Sri Lankan cooking, particularly in fish curries. It is sometimes sold as Malabar tamarind, but it is not true tamarind, which Sri Lankans call siyambala and use for different dishes.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 4 tips below come from three years of eating rice and curry in Sri Lanka, and none of them is obvious from a menu.

1. Order by the name of the curry, not by “curry”. Asking for chicken curry gets you the house version. Asking for kukul mas mirisata, ambul thiyal or kos ata maluwa gets you a conversation and usually a better plate, because it tells the kitchen you know what you are asking for.
2. Go to a “hotel” for the real thing. In Sri Lankan English a roadside eatery is signed as a hotel. The rice and curry at a busy local hotel at lunchtime, served from covered pots that have been cooking since dawn, beats anything a tourist restaurant will put in front of you.
3. Buy the two curry powders separately. Sri Lankan kitchens keep unroasted powder for vegetables and coconut-milk curries and roasted powder for meat and fish. One jar labelled “Sri Lankan curry powder” will make half your dishes taste wrong.
4. Eat with your right hand at least once. Mixing rice and curry with your fingers lets you set the ratio in every mouthful, and it changes the meal. I asked for a fork on my first day in Sri Lanka and never asked for one again after that.

About the author. This post was written for Wonderful Wanderings by Yulia Dyukova, a food and travel writer who spent three years living in Sri Lanka and who researches a new country by searching for what to eat there before what to see. She writes at The Foodie Miles on Instagram. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the editorial team covers Sri Lanka for independent travellers, including the food, the cookbooks and the travel insurance worth having, and updates this page when a dish, a name or a source needs correcting.