Details
Imli Jeera is a tamarind and cumin hot sauce, built the way I first made it in my own kitchen: cumin roasted until it turns nutty, tamarind pulled for its sharp sourness, and just enough chili to let the spices lead. Eight ingredients, nothing else. Vegan, gluten-free, low sugar, 100% natural.
Garam Goddess
West Saugerties, NY
TLDR Background Story
Garam Goddess is a small-batch line of Indian-inspired hot sauces made in the Hudson Valley, NY, bridging two culinary worlds with fresh peppers and Indian spices that bring heat and warmth in equal measure. I built it over four years selling face-to-face at farmers markets, pop-ups, and food festivals before moving into specialty retail and DTC, and it’s now in doors nationwide, with our Imli Jeera named a Good Food Award finalist this year.
Proudest Achievement
Being named a Good Food Award finalist for Imli Jeera meant a lot, it’s proof the flavor holds up on its own, judged blind against sauces from all over the country. I’m also proud that Garam Goddess has been self-funded and profitable from the start, no outside investment, just reinvesting what the business made back into itself. But what I’m proudest of happens in smaller moments: watching someone taste it for the first time and see their expectations get rewired in real time. People hear “Indian” and “hot sauce” and expect one thing, and then they taste tamarind and bloomed cumin instead of just heat, and you can watch it click. That reaction, over and over, is why I started this in the first place.
The "Why" Behind the Business
I grew up on the flavors of Indian street food, cumin toasted until it turned fragrant and nutty, tamarind’s sharp sourness, the way mustard seeds and curry leaves bloom and crackle the moment they hit hot oil, filling the kitchen with that first unmistakable smell that means dinner is close. Those were the flavors of home. After immigrating, food became the way I worked out who I was in a new country. I started experimenting in my own kitchen, discovering hot peppers I’d never cooked with before and layering them against the spices I already knew by heart. Nothing on U.S. shelves came close to what I was making, so Garam Goddess became my way of turning that kitchen experimentation into something to share, a way to introduce people to real Indian flavor, not just heat.
Coolest/Most Fun Experience
Two moments stand out. Megan Thee Stallion has tasted Garam Goddess, which still feels surreal to type. And our sauce made it onto the set of Nora from Queens, seeing it show up in a world that has nothing to do with farmers markets or festivals was a reminder of how far this has traveled from where it started.
The most fun is meeting other woman founders, hearing their why and sharing funny and not so funny stories.