We usually make delicious Japanese curry rice from store-bought Japanese curry roux such as “Golden Curry”. This post is for people who love Japanese curry but cannot buy the curry roux for whatever reason. If you have the time to make your own roux from scratch, it is healthier and tastes better also.
How to cook Japanese curry?
Japanese people usually make curry sauce from store bought ready made curry roux. A popular brand is House Vermont curry or Golden Curry 
Curry roux from scratch
Although the store-bought Japanese curry roux such as “Golden curry” boxes seem to be readily available, it is still difficult for some people living outside of Japan to buy it. So I am happy to share this recipe.
Spice mix
We need spices for colour, fragrance, and uuumm “spiciness”. I use turmeric mostly for colour. For fragrance, I use cardamom, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, onion powder, garlic powder, nutmeg, and garam masala. And for spiciness, I use black pepper, ginger powder, chilli powder and curry powder.
How to make Japanese curry roux?
Once you have decided which species you are going to blend all together, you need to roast them over low heat in a non-stick frying pan till it becomes fragrant. Set the roasted blend aside. The next step is to add butter and flour to the mix. Melt the butter in a frying pan and add honey then add flour to combine them together over low heat.
When you add the flour, it may be a little lumpy, but if you keep stirring for about 15 minutes, it becomes smooth. Then add the roasted and aromatic spices to the roux. When the mixture has combined, place it into a container to set overnight in the refrigerator.
Storing Curry Roux
I wanted this homemade Japanese curry roux to look like the roux from the grocery stores. So I used a 12 x 12 x 5 cm (4.7 x 4.7 x 2 inch) 380ml in volume cling wrap lined container. After pouring the roux into the container, you fold the cling wrap over the top. Then make a score over the wrap so that when it is set, it is easily broken by hand just like store bought roux. You can see how I do this in my instructional video.
This will store for 2-3 weeks in the fridge and also you can freeze it. Keep it wrapped in the cling wrap and put it in a ziplock bag. This way it will store in the freezer for 2 months.
I would love to hear what you think about this recipe. If you liked the recipe, please rate it and leave a comment below. Also don’t forget to check out my other Japanese curry related recipes such as Chicken Katsu Curry, Japanese Beef curry, Curry Udon and Curry Pan (Curry bread).
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Japanese curry roux homemade 自家製カレー粉
Video
Ingredients
- 1 tsp turmeric *1
- 1 tsp cardamom
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp cloves
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp ginger powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp curry powder
- 150 g butter
- 150 g plain (all purpose) flour
- 3 tbsp honey *2
Instructions
- Roast all selected spices in a non-stick frying pan over low heat for about 5 minutes till fragrant. Then set aside.
- Melt butter in a frying pan over low heat and add honey.
- Add flour into the frying pan and stir to combine butter and flour.
- Keep stirring for about 15 minutes. The mixture is lumpy at the beginning but will become smooth.
- Add roasted spices into the frying pan and combine them all together.
- When they are well combined, turn the heat off.
- Line container(s) with cling wrap and place the roux into the containers.
- Cover and wrap the curry roux with the cling wrap and make scores on them so that it easily breaks into pieces later.
- Place in the fridge overnight and allow to set.
- They will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks. Or put them in a freezer ziplock bag and keep them in a freezer. It will keep a couple of months.
Hi! So glad to find this recipe. There is mild, medium and hot versions. Would this one be considered mild? Which spice/s would you add and how much to make it different heat levels. Thanks!
Hi Lisa, I would say this is mild. You can experiment to different amount of spices to find your liking.
Hello from Bali! <3 I am so happy to find your recipe! Delightful to know that I finally can use all my dry spices, and not only for Indian cooking but making Japanese curry which is my favourite comfort food!
So I made your recipe last night, I had almost all the ingredients (except cardamom and garlic powder).
I also added one apple and 2 sachet of tomato sauce – just to add some sweetness, because I don't think I'll go out buy apple every time I am craving for curry.
At first it didn't turn out great, so I reduce the flour. I put in fridge overnight but they weren't set, so now they are in my freezer, I wonder what's wrong though.
Nevertheless, I just made one batch and they turn out delicious. It's not as tasteful as the store bought curry roux but at least its free from preservatives and other chemical ingredients like artificial sweetener or food coloring.
Thank you again for the recipe and hope you're staying well 🙂
Thank you Jeanne, making the curry roux and for your feedback. I am well thank you. Hope you are doing well too.
I was going to use my organic chili powder by McCormick but I noticed that— similarly to another comment— the ingredients included other spices (a quick Google search said that perhaps what we want to be using is chile powder because, just like curry powder, chili powder is a mix of spices). I decided to use 1/2 tsp of cayenne powder in the place of the chili powder. Also, I used Tablespoons for measuring the butter and flour (I found 10 Tablespoons of butter and 1 cup of flour worked fine). Finally, I didn’t have any ground cardamom so I used the seeds from 6 cardamom pods and roughly ground them (Google said that would be equivalent to the 1 tsp called for). I made my curry with 2 cups unsalted bone broth, 1/2 cup water, and just the veggies and found that I preferred to use 4 (instead of 3) of the 9 roux cubes produced. It tasted great with fresh sea salt at serving time. I found with the 1/2 tsp cayenne it was about medium spicy (but depending on the brand, I’ve found that the heat can definitely vary).
So glad to have something fresh at my table. Thanks so much!
Great adjustment Laura 😀
This looks delicious. How much of the roux do you use per water when making the dish?
Hi Robynette, I usually add about 2 cups of water and use 3-4 roux but it all depends the size of your cubes too, so just add till you get right consistency.
Hi 🙋♀️
I live in Virginia and it’s hard to find the Japanese curry blocks in my area. There’s a lot of dry spice and basic dry beans available but hard to find the ready made products. I made the curry roux today and it tasted delicious 😋 I was able to deed my family a Japanese Curry meal. Thank you so much!
Hi Joanne, Thank you. I am glad that you could have Japanese curry in Virginia 😀
I love this recipe, the curry roux was so easy to make! I’ve never been to Japan but I have always wanted to try the famous curry rice, and I finally could! Thank you so much!
Thank you for this lovely recipe Shihoko! Can’t wait to try it! Am I right in understanding that 1 block (40 gram) would be enough for a curry for two people only? This would make one block = two servings correct?
Greetings from Bristol!
Thank you Bella, yes that’s correct.
Thanks Shihoko for this recipe – I love Japanese curry rice which has become a staple comfort food while I lived in Singapore. Unfortunately in Southern Portugal nobody knows these curry cubes so I was glad to find your super easy-to-make recipe. The roux tastes amazing and I don’t think I’ll ever go back to ready-made ones even if they become available here. I used local orange blossom honey and exchanged cayenne pepper to piri piri (also doubled its quantity). It turned out fab.
Hi Marcell, Thank you for your lovely comment and excellent ratings. I am glad it worked for you and loving it 😀
Hi Marvell! I’m an American living in the Algarve too! Apolonia does indeed sell the S & B curry mix.
What is curry powder and garam masala? I think they are also combination of some spices. Can you help? I love japanese cooking.
Hi Mahzabeen yes I believe garam masala is combination of spices that you can buy from any supermarkets. I bought it from my local woolworths in Brisbane.
Thank you for sharing. I do love japaness foods.
Thank you Pendy, would you mind to share the reason of your rating?
Hi Shihoko, I was wondering what level spiciness of Golden Curry you based this mix on? I prefer the mild S&B Roux, or to mix mild and medium, so I’ve been searching for a scratch version at about that level. The nearest asian grocery is 1.5 hours away T_T.
Hi Aimee, mild 😀
Thank you for creating and sharing this recipe. I can’t wait to try it with gluten free flour to see how it turns out.
Hi Liz, That is a great idea. Please let me know how it turned out.
Hi I am interested in making this dish but I am curious, do I need to store the curry overnight before using it or is it possible to use it right away?
Hi Samantha, you can use it straight away, I put it in the fridge so it sets like the store bought one.
Hi there .. with the roux 40gm each, how many pieces of roux (or grams) do we need in to make japanese curry?
hello how many grams of each spice do we use if we convert it to grams?
Hi Anne, 5g 😀
Thanks for your recipes. I will try it by removing the garlic as i am vegetarian.
You are welcome Jasmine.
Garlic is a vegetable…..
Isn’t garlic vegetable? Why would a vegetarian remove it? Not being funny, just wondering if I’m missing something. Thank you.
One of the ingredients is “chilli powder” Do you mean American style chili powder with is a mix of several spices including chili pepper, cumin, garlic, oregano or did you mean powdered dried chili peppers?
I used Penzey’s Chili 3000., I hope that was the sort of thing you had in mind.
We haven’t used the curry paste yet, but it sure smelled good!
Hi Shirley, the chilli powder I used is just pure chilli nothing combined 😀
Hi,
Is there a recipe for curry powder? I don’t get Curry powder near my place. Would really appreciate if I could get a homemade version of it cuz I would love to try this recipe.
Hi Akshara, no I don’t have recipe. Can you get it online?
This is so so good and exactly like what I remember when I used to be able to find Golden Curry
Hi Cindy Thank you for the comment and 5 star rating. I use this often now instead of buying commercial package 😀
Hi Shihoko,
Many many thanks for sharing this recipe.
I had this dish once about 12 years ago and really loved it. For some weird reason, I forgot all about it. Lately, I started thinking about it again but was disappointed to learn that The Roux was some patented corporate frankenfood.
Thank you for your hard work approximating the real version of this dish. I will try it but substitute olive oil for butter and see how it goes.
Cheers!
Hi Stephen, you are welcome 😀 Hope your curry roux turned out great with olive oil.
Hi from Scotland! I tried to make this recipe but the butter, flour, and honey never ended up becoming smooth, it just ended up in grainy chunks and the spices didnt mix with it. Any advice on how to prevent this? Thanks!
Hi Ian. Wow from Scotland 😀 Thank you for trying to make this. Did you heat and melt the butter before you add flour and honey? And then keep stirring for like 15min? It should become smooth.
Hi – I had the same issue. Maybe butter or flour or altitude in different places make a difference? I don’t know, but once the flour was cooked, I just added some water to make a smooth paste. The flavour is really good – complex and subtle but bold- and I love knowing that we have more curry roux ready in the freezer. Great recipe – thanks!
You can add some olive oil to it to make it smooth.