What to use instead of turmeric
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Golden colour carried through a whole dish
Curcumin is fat-soluble and stains everything, which is why a quarter teaspoon colours a pot of dal and also the worktop. It needs oil or fat to distribute evenly.
Fresh turmeric, gratedRan out
1 tbsp grated fresh per 1 tsp ground
Brighter orange, more gingery and less bitter, without the dusty note dried turmeric picks up on the shelf.
Annatto bloomed in oil and strainedRan out
1/2 tsp seeds warmed in 2 tbsp oil per 1 tsp turmeric
Orange rather than yellow and mildly peppery. It colours the fat, so it shows best in a fried base and barely at all in a watery soup.
Curry powderRan out
1 1/2 tsp per 1 tsp turmeric
Turmeric is usually the largest component, so the colour lands. Coriander, fenugreek and cumin arrive with it and change the dish.
Sweet paprikaRan out
1 tsp per 1 tsp turmeric
Red-orange instead of yellow and noticeably sweeter. Works in a rice, wrong in a golden milk.
What doesn't work: Saffron in a dal. It costs many times as much and does the wrong job entirely; saffron perfumes where turmeric grounds, so the dal ends up smelling of a Persian rice dish and missing the bitter earthy floor it was built on.
Earthy, slightly bitter base note under the other spices
Past the colour, turmeric supplies a dry bitterness that gives dal, ghormeh sabzi and a curry base their bottom end. It has to fry in fat for half a minute or it tastes raw and chalky.
Ground mustardRan out
use half as much
Bitter in a sharper, more volatile way, and it fades over a long cook where turmeric holds its ground.
Ground fenugreekRan out
use a quarter as much
Much more bitter with a maple note. A quarter teaspoon is already assertive and half will take over the pot.
Curry powderRan out
1 1/2 tsp per 1 tsp turmeric
Carries the bitterness along with everything else in the tin, so treat the rest of the spicing as already partly done.
What doesn't work: Leaving it out and adding yellow colouring instead. Turmeric is holding down the bitter end of a dal or a ghormeh sabzi, so without it the pot tastes flat and one-dimensionally sweet even though it looks exactly right.
Raw turmeric tastes chalky. Give it thirty seconds in hot fat with the other ground spices before any liquid goes into the pan.