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Cultural Ferment

Amba Recipe: Fermented Green Mango Sauce With Fenugreek and Turmeric

By Updated 2 min read

Amba is the golden fermented mango pickle that traveled from Basra to Tel Aviv and never looked back. Tangy, funky, fenugreek-laced, and packed with live cultures — and easier to make at home than you’d expect.

At a glance

Amba is a tangy green-mango sauce with fenugreek, turmeric and chilli from Iraqi cooking, now the classic sauce of the Israeli sabich sandwich. To ferment it, salt sliced hard green mango, pack it with the spices under a little brine for 5–7 days until clearly sour, then blend and refrigerate. Green mangoes range from about pH 3.4 to 4.8, so the souring matters: if it isn't sharply sour, don't use it.

  • Green-mango sauce with fenugreek, turmeric and chilli, from Iraqi cooking.
  • The classic sauce of the sabich sandwich.
  • Green mangoes measure about pH 3.4–4.8, so the ferment must turn clearly sour.
  • Ferment 5–7 days at room temperature, then blend and refrigerate.
  • Quick amba uses vinegar instead of fermentation.

Ferment profile

Origin
Iraq (Iraqi and Iraqi-Jewish cooking); now common in Israel
Fermentation
Lactic acid
Main microbes
Salt- and acid-tolerant lactic acid bacteria and other bacteria from the fruit
Live cultures
Depends on preparation
Alcohol
None / trace

Amba is a tangy, mustard-yellow mango sauce flavoured with fenugreek, turmeric and chilli. It belongs to Iraqi cooking – Iraqi Jews in particular – and travelled with them to Israel, where it’s now the essential sauce in sabich, a pita of fried aubergine, hard-boiled egg, salad, tahini and amba, and a common topping for shawarma and falafel. It’s made from hard green mangoes, salted and left to sour before being blended with spices; commercial amba is often sharpened with vinegar instead.

Why the Mango Has to Turn Sour

Unripe mangoes are acidic, but not reliably so: published pH values for green mangoes range from about 3.4 to 4.8, while ripe mangoes are around 5.8–6.0 (FDA values, Clemson Extension). The upper end of the green range is above pH 4.6, the line US regulations use for acidified foods (21 CFR 114). So in a fermented amba it’s the souring in the jar – not the mango alone – that makes it keep. If your batch isn’t clearly, sharply sour after about a week, don’t use it.

Salted mango pickles are an old way of doing this. In a traditional South Indian mango brine pickle, for instance, researchers found bacteria able to survive six months at room temperature in its high salt and low pH (Ragul et al., 2020). The amba method below is shorter and finishes in the fridge.

Choosing the Mangoes

Use rock-hard green mangoes that are mouth-puckeringly sour when you taste a sliver – South Asian grocers sell them as “raw mango”. Ripe or softening mangoes are too sweet and not acidic enough; they ferment towards alcohol and mush rather than a clean sour.

How to Use Amba

  • Sabich: warm pita with hummus, fried aubergine, sliced hard-boiled egg, chopped salad, tahini and plenty of amba.
  • Drizzled over shawarma, falafel, grilled chicken or oily fish, or stirred into yogurt as a dip.
  • Tossed with cauliflower before roasting.

Quick amba: for the flavour without fermenting, simmer grated green mango with the same spices, salt and a little vinegar, cool and refrigerate – it has no live cultures but keeps well in the fridge. For related pickles, see Indian achaar and preserved lemons; for vegetables, see the best vegetables to ferment.

Recipe: Fermented Amba

Makes
About 500 ml
Hands-on
30 min
Fermentation
5–7 days at 21–25°C
Salt
3% of the mango's weight, plus 3% brine to top up
Temperature
21–25°C (70–77°F)
Difficulty
Moderate

Equipment

  • Kitchen scale
  • 1-litre glass jar with an airlock or loose lid
  • Fermentation weight
  • Blender

Ingredients

  • About 800 g hard green (unripe) mangoes (peeled weight; very sour)
  • 24 g salt (3% of the mango; non-iodized)
  • 1 tbsp fenugreek seeds (lightly toasted and cracked)
  • 1 tbsp ground turmeric
  • 1–2 tsp chilli flakes or powder (to taste)
  • 1 tsp ground cumin (optional)
  • As needed 3% brine (30 g salt per litre of boiled, cooled water)

Method

  1. Peel the mangoes and cut the flesh from the stones in slices about 1 cm thick. Weigh it.
  2. Toss with 3% of its weight in salt and all the spices until evenly yellow.
  3. Pack tightly into the jar, pressing out air. Add just enough 3% brine to cover, and weigh the mango down under it.
  4. Close with an airlock (or a loose lid, burped daily) and leave at 21–25°C, out of the sun. It will smell strongly of fenugreek.
  5. From day 5, taste: it's ready when sharply, clearly sour – usually by day 5–7. If it isn't clearly sour by about day 10, discard it.
  6. Blend the mango with enough of its brine to make a thick, pourable sauce. Refrigerate in a clean jar and use within about a month.
  7. Discard any batch with fuzzy mould, slime or a rotten smell.

Frequently asked questions

What is amba?

A tangy green-mango sauce with fenugreek, turmeric and chilli from Iraqi cooking, best known as the sauce in the Israeli sabich sandwich.

Is amba fermented?

Traditionally the salted mango is left to sour before blending; many commercial and quick versions use vinegar instead.

Can I make amba with ripe mango?

No. Ripe mango is too sweet and not acidic enough – it ferments towards alcohol and mush. Use hard green mangoes.

Why does amba smell so strong?

Fenugreek. The smell during fermentation is intense and mellows after blending and chilling.

How long does amba keep?

About a month in the fridge in a clean, closed jar.

Sources

  1. Clemson Cooperative Extension. pH values of common foods and ingredients (from FDA data). Link
  2. Ragul K et al. (2020). Safety and stability assessment of potential probiotic strains from fermented mango brine pickle. Probiotics Antimicrob Proteins 12(3):1039–1044. Link
  3. eCFR. 21 CFR Part 114 – Acidified foods. Link
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