Ausbildung Programme Germany

Indian Food in Germany - Where to Find It and How to Cook It on an Azubi Budget

The Food Question Every Indian Student Has

Before most Indian Ausbildung candidates ask about visa timelines or language levels, they ask about food. And it is a fair concern. Moving from a country where your entire cuisine - rice, dal, roti, sabzi, spices, chai - is available at every corner shop to a country where the default supermarket stocks rye bread, sausages, and sauerkraut is a genuine adjustment.

The good news is that Germany, particularly its cities, has a well-established South Asian grocery ecosystem. Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, and Bangladeshi grocery stores operate in almost every major German city. Even in smaller towns, the landscape has improved considerably in the past decade. You will not eat exactly as you do at home - but you will eat well, cook familiar food, and manage your budget if you plan ahead.

This blog is a practical guide, not a motivational one. Here is what is actually available, where to find it, and how to make it work on the €850 to €1,100 a month you will be taking home as an Ausbildung trainee.

What You Can Find in Regular German Supermarkets

Germany's mainstream supermarkets - REWE, Edeka, Lidl, Aldi, Penny - stock more than most Indian students expect. The following ingredients are widely available without needing a specialist shop:

Where to Find the Harder-to-Find Ingredients

For everything beyond the basics - specific spice blends, atta flour, mustard seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida (hing), dried red chillies, methi, poha, or ready-made masalas - you will need an Indian or Asian grocery store. Here is where to look:

• Indian / Pakistani grocery stores: Present in almost every German city with a population above 100,000. Search "Indian Lebensmittel [your city]" or "Indischer Supermarkt [your city]" on Google Maps. In cities like Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Cologne, and Stuttgart, you will find multiple stores.
• Asian supermarkets (Asiamarkt): Larger than Indian-specific stores and stock products from across South and Southeast Asia. Often carry Indian brands like Everest, MDH, Shan, Lijjat papad, and MTR ready-to-cook packets. Search "Asiamarkt [your city]".
• Turkish supermarkets (Türkischer Supermarkt): Germany has a large Turkish community, and Turkish grocery stores are extremely common even in smaller cities. They stock excellent lentils, chickpeas, fresh vegetables, spices (cumin, coriander, paprika), rice, and flatbreads. The quality is high and prices are very reasonable - a genuinely useful alternative.
• Online: Amazon.de and specialist online Indian grocery shops ship across Germany. Useful for bulk orders of atta, specific spice brands, or ingredients hard to find locally.

Managing Food on an Azubi Budget

Your net monthly stipend during Ausbildung will typically be between €850 and €1,100. After rent (which many employers subsidise or provide at reduced cost), health insurance, and transport, a realistic food budget for a single person in Germany is around €150 to €250 per month - roughly €5 to €8 per day.

Indian cooking is very well-suited to this budget. Dal, rice, and roti are among the cheapest meals you can make in Germany. A 1kg bag of red lentils costs around €1.50. A 5kg bag of basmati rice costs €8 to €12. A 5kg bag of atta from an Asian shop costs around €5 to €8. These staples last weeks and form the base of multiple meals.

Where trainees tend to overspend is on ready-made Indian food from restaurants or over-ordering convenience items. Indian restaurants in Germany are genuinely expensive - a single meal can cost €12 to €20. Cooking at home is both cheaper and more satisfying. Most experienced Indian Azubis cook in batches: a large pot of dal on Sunday lasts three days of lunches.

Things You Will Miss - and Workable Substitutes

Some ingredients are genuinely hard to find or expensive in Germany, and honest advice is better than false reassurance. Here are the most common gaps and what Indian Ausbildung trainees typically do about them:

• Fresh curry leaves: Rarely available outside large cities. Dried curry leaves work reasonably well, or skip them entirely. Some trainees ask family to send dried curry leaves by post.
• Hing (asafoetida): Available at Indian grocery shops, not in regular supermarkets. Buy a small tin at the Asian shop on your first trip - it lasts a very long time.
• Meetha paan, supari, or specific Indian snacks: Not available in mainstream shops. Indian grocery stores in larger cities sometimes carry these, or they can be ordered online.
• Specific regional ingredients (e.g. Kashmiri chilli, kokum, raw mango powder): Available at well-stocked Indian grocery stores in bigger cities. For smaller towns, online ordering is the reliable solution.
• Fresh coconut or coconut milk: Coconut milk (canned) is widely available. Fresh coconut is harder to find but sometimes available at Turkish or Asian supermarkets in larger cities.

Cooking in Shared Accommodation

Many Ausbildung trainees in Germany live in shared flats (WG - Wohngemeinschaft) or employer-provided shared housing in their first year. Kitchen access is typically shared. A few practical points that experienced Indian Azubis mention consistently:

The smell of Indian cooking - particularly tadka with mustard seeds, curry leaves, and hing - can be strong in enclosed spaces. Most German flatmates are fine with it, especially in cities, but it is courteous to use the extractor fan, keep windows open while cooking, and have a brief conversation with your flatmates in the first weeks about shared kitchen use. In practice, most Indian trainees report no significant friction - German flatmates are often curious and appreciative of home-cooked food.

Invest early in a pressure cooker if your shared kitchen does not have one. It is the single most useful cooking tool for Indian food and makes dal, rajma, and rice much faster to prepare. A basic pressure cooker in Germany costs €25 to €50 at REWE, Kaufland, or Amazon.de.