Menus & Cuisines
Indian Catering in Medellín
Medellin Elite Catering cooks North Indian curries, biryani and fresh naan for families, companies and visiting groups in Medellín who miss a proper masala. We toast and grind our spice blends in our own kitchen, simmer the gravies slowly, and bring everything to your venue hot.
Our Indian menus serve Diwali gatherings, Indian and Colombian couples planning a mixed wedding, tech teams with colleagues from Bangalore and Pune, and curious hosts who simply love the food. Every menu can be fully vegetarian, and the heat is set per dish rather than per kitchen.
We have cooked for Medellín events since 2019, and Indian food is the cuisine where small technical choices matter most. Basmati that stays separate in a chafing dish, naan that is still soft at the second helping and a dal that tastes of tempered cumin, not powder: that is what we plan for.
- Itemized quotes available
- Bilingual English and Spanish coordinators
Plan your event
Our Indian Catering
We offer Indian food as a drop-off buffet in chafing dishes, as a fully staffed buffet, or as plated thalis for a seated dinner. Drop-off orders reach homes and offices across central Medellín and catering in Laureles, and our buffet catering page compares the serving formats side by side. A typical menu has two curries, one dal, rice, bread, a vegetable side, raita and chutneys, which gives every guest a balanced plate without twenty dishes to manage.
Most bookings are birthdays and family celebrations at home, team lunches, and cultural evenings at clubs and salones sociales. For a large office celebration we pair the curry line with our corporate event catering team, which handles staffing, timing and the logistics of serving a building full of people in one lunch hour.
Indian Menu Highlights
The dishes below are the ones we cook most often, and each holds well on a buffet for the two hours a party lasts. You can choose from the full list or let our head chef suggest a balance of creamy, dry, spicy and mild.
| Dish | What it is | Diet |
|---|---|---|
| Butter chicken (murgh makhani) | Tandoori-spiced chicken in a tomato, butter and cream sauce | Contains dairy |
| Chicken tikka masala | Charred chicken pieces in a spiced onion and tomato gravy | Contains dairy |
| Lamb rogan josh | Slow-braised lamb with Kashmiri chili, fennel and cardamom | Dairy-free on request |
| Chicken or vegetable biryani | Layered basmati, saffron, fried onion and whole spices, sealed and steamed | Gluten-free |
| Chana masala | Chickpeas in a tangy onion, tomato and amchur gravy | Vegan |
| Dal tadka | Yellow lentils finished with cumin, garlic and chili tempered in ghee | Vegan with oil |
| Garlic and butter naan | Leavened wheat flatbread, baked to order | Contains wheat and dairy |
| Raita and chutneys | Cucumber yogurt, mint chutney, tamarind and mango chutney | Vegetarian |
Biryani is cooked in the dum style: the pot is sealed with dough and finished slowly, so the rice steams in the meat juices. We make it in batches of 30 portions at most, because larger pots crush the grains at the bottom.
How We Cook Indian Food in Medellín
Whole spices are the base of every dish, so we import green cardamom, black cardamom, fenugreek, asafoetida and Kashmiri chili through specialty importers. Turmeric, ginger, cilantro and fresh green chilies are grown in Colombia, and we buy them fresh each week.
We make paneer and ghee ourselves from whole Antioquian milk, because store-bought paneer is rare in Medellín and often crumbles in a sauce. Basmati comes from Indian and Pakistani brands sold in local supermarkets, and we rinse and soak it for 30 minutes before cooking.
We do not have a clay tandoor, and we would rather tell you than pretend. Our tandoori chicken and tikka are marinated overnight in yogurt and spices, roasted in a combi oven at 250 °C, then charred on a cast iron plancha to get the smoky edges.
Vegetarian and Jain Options
Indian cuisine has the deepest vegetarian range of any menu we cook, and a fully meat-free buffet never feels like a compromise. Palak paneer, dal makhani, aloo gobi, baingan bharta, vegetable korma and chana masala can fill a whole table, and guests rarely notice the meat is missing.
Vegetarian dishes are cooked in separate pots with their own ladles and are labeled on the buffet, which also helps guests on our vegetarian catering menus. Vegan guests can have most dishes made with oil instead of ghee and coconut milk instead of cream.
Jain menus are available by arrangement with at least one week of notice. That means no meat, eggs, onion, garlic or root vegetables such as potato, carrot and fresh ginger, so we build those dishes with tomato, asafoetida, raw banana, cabbage and lentils, and cook them in a cleaned, separate section of the kitchen.
Spice Levels
We cook every curry at medium unless you ask otherwise, and we bring heat on the side so hotter palates can add it. Colombian guests often find even mild Indian food warm, while guests who grew up in Delhi or Chennai expect real chili, so many hosts ask us to label each dish.
| Level | What it means | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Mild | Full aroma, almost no chili; butter chicken, korma, dal makhani | Children, mixed Colombian crowds, office lunches |
| Medium | A gentle warmth that builds; tikka masala, chana masala, biryani | Most groups |
| Hot | Fresh green chili and Kashmiri chili; vindaloo, chili paneer | Guests used to Indian home cooking |
| Extra hot | Hot dishes plus a side of chili pickle and green chili chutney | Brave tables only |
Spice is added during cooking, not sprinkled at the end, so the level of a pot cannot change once it leaves our kitchen. Tell us the mix of your group when you book and we will split the curries across two levels.
Keeping Curries and Naan Right on the Buffet
Most problems with catered Indian food come from holding it, not from cooking it. Rice overcooks, cream sauces split, and naan goes leathery within 20 minutes in a closed chafing dish.
We prevent this in three ways. Rice is cooked just short of done because the chafing dish finishes it, cream-based curries are held at 65 to 70 °C instead of boiling, and naan is baked in rounds of 20 pieces at the venue or brushed with ghee and wrapped in cloth for drop-off orders.
For quantities, we plan 180 to 200 g of curry protein, 120 g of cooked rice and 1.5 naan per guest at a dinner. Lunch portions run about 25% lighter, and vegetarian buffets get one extra dish to keep the plate filling.
Questions and answers
Indian Catering FAQs
Can you cater a Diwali party?
Yes, Diwali is one of our busiest Indian bookings, usually in late October or November. We build a festive menu around paneer tikka, chole, biryani and puri, then add Diwali sweets such as gulab jamun, kheer and besan ladoo. Book about 3 weeks ahead, because the date often falls in our pre-December rush.
Is your meat halal?
Our everyday chicken and lamb come from Colombian suppliers that are not halal certified, and our kitchen itself has no halal certification. When you ask at least 2 weeks ahead, we try to buy halal-certified chicken through a specialist supplier and cook it in pans kept only for that order, and we confirm in writing whether we found it before you pay. Many hosts with halal guests simply choose an all-vegetarian Indian menu, which removes the question entirely.
Reserve your date
Plan an Indian Menu for Your Event
Send us your date, guest count, how many guests are vegetarian and the heat level your group enjoys, and we will return an itemized quote within 24 hours. You can also write to info@medellincatering.com.
- Itemized quotes available
- Menus, staff, tableware, setup and cleanup in one quote
- Food-handler certified team and labeled allergens on every tray
- Monday to Saturday
- 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
- Sunday
- Closed (events still run)