National dish

What is the national dish of Sri Lanka?

Sri Lanka has no officially declared national dish, but rice and curry is the one most often cited. It is a plate rather than a single recipe: boiled or steamed rice in the centre, a fish or meat curry, several curries of vegetables, lentils or fruit, and a sharp side such as pol sambol, raw coconut pounded with chilli and lime. Kottu roti is sometimes named too.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

What is rice and curry?

Rice and curry is the central feature of Sri Lankan food. A mound of rice is served with one curry of fish or meat and a spread of smaller curries made from vegetables, lentils or fruit. Pickles, chutneys and sambols sit around the edge.

Each element is cooked in its own pot and set down separately on the plate, so the curry stays dark and hot, the dhal mild and creamy and the sambol sharp.

What is on a rice and curry plate?

Plates change with the household and the season, but a typical one, like the one in our rice and curry recipe, holds:

Rice: samba or red kekulu, local varieties with a smaller grain than basmati. Sri Lanka grows many red rices, some of them heirloom varieties.
A meat or fish curry: here chicken rubbed with dark roasted curry powder and simmered in coconut milk with curry leaves and pandan until the sauce clings.
Dhal: red lentils boiled until they collapse, finished with onion, garlic and curry leaves fried brown and with coconut milk.
Vegetable curries: made from whatever is in season, such as green papaya, snake beans, pumpkin or bitter melon.
Pol sambol: freshly grated coconut ground raw with shallots, chilli, lime juice and salt, traditionally on a granite block called a miris gala, often with flakes of Maldives fish.

What makes Sri Lankan curry different

Coconut milk and grated coconut are prepared fresh almost every day in most households, and they run through the whole plate. The spice blends lean on Sri Lankan cinnamon and black pepper, and cooks use ingredients rarely seen in neighbouring kitchens: goraka for sourness, pandan leaf, kithul palm jaggery and Maldives fish, a smoked and cured tuna sold in chips or flakes to give vegetable dishes depth.

The roasted curry powder is the other marker. It is darker than a raw curry blend and gives meat curries their deep brown colour. The cooking is close to South Indian food, especially in Jaffna, but the coconut and roasted spices make it its own; compare with the national dish of India.

Is kottu the national dish of Sri Lanka?

Some lists name kottu alongside rice and curry. It is a younger, street-food dish: kottu comes from the Tamil koththu, "to chop". It is generally thought to have started in the 1960s or 1970s on the east coast, in Batticaloa and Trincomalee, as a cheap way to use day-old godamba roti, though some accounts place its birth in Colombo. The roti is cut into strips on a hot griddle and chopped with heavy metal blades together with vegetables, egg and the meat and gravy of a curry.

The gravy is what separates it from a stir-fry: the roti should drink it and stay in strips. Our kottu roti recipe takes 3 to 4 minutes of chopping on the griddle. Rice and curry remains the everyday meal.

Rice and curry, kottu and hoppers: when each is eaten

Rice and curry is the home meal, cooked in several pots. Kottu is usually prepared and served as fast food, on a griddle. String hoppers, steamed circlets of rice dough, are not eaten plain but with a curry such as kiri hodi, and spicy hoppers usually come with lunu miris.

Some dishes are kept for occasions. Kiribath, rice cooked in salted coconut milk until soft, is eaten for breakfast but also made for birthdays and religious festivals, and at the Sinhala and Tamil New Year it is served with sweets such as kavum and kokis. Lamprais, a Dutch Burgher dish of rice boiled in stock with frikkadel meatballs, a mixed-meat curry and seeni sambol, is wrapped in a banana leaf and baked; it is common at large gatherings because it takes so long to make.

Other dishes to know from Sri Lanka

Hoppers, appa in Sinhala and appam in Tamil, are made from a fermented batter of rice flour and coconut milk, raised with palm toddy or yeast. Swirled in a small deep pan, they set into a bowl with a lacy rim. Egg hoppers have an egg cooked in the centre and come with lunu miris, a relish of red onion and chilli.

In the Tamil north, kool is a Jaffna seafood broth of crab, fish, cuttlefish and prawns with tamarind, thickened with palmyra root flour. Maldives fish ties the island's cooking to its island neighbour; see the national dish of the Maldives.

All our recipes from the island are on the page about the food of Sri Lanka, and the wider family is in our guide to South Asian food.

The recipes

Questions people ask

Does Sri Lanka have an official national dish?

No dish has official status. Rice and curry is the one most often cited as national, with kottu sometimes named as well.

What is served with rice and curry in Sri Lanka?

A meat or fish curry, several curries of vegetables, lentils or fruit, and sides such as pickles, chutneys and sambols, especially pol sambol made from coconut, chilli and lime.

What is the difference between Sri Lankan and Indian curry?

Sri Lankan curries use more coconut, dark roasted curry powder, Sri Lankan cinnamon and ingredients like goraka, pandan and Maldives fish. Tamil cooking in Jaffna remains close to South Indian food.

What does kottu mean?

Kottu comes from the Tamil word koththu, meaning "to chop". Day-old godamba roti is chopped on a hot griddle with vegetables, egg and curry, using heavy metal blades.

What rice is used for Sri Lankan rice and curry?

Local varieties such as samba and kekulu, in white or red forms. Sri Lanka grows many red rices, some of them heirloom varieties.

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