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Created on August 21, 2026
Mango chutney is normally made with fresh, slightly green mangoes, and assumes you can find decent ones. Dried mango solves the problem: it is available all year, it already has the concentrated flavour you are trying to reach through long cooking, and it saves you an hour at the stove.
The result is thick and glossy, somewhere between sweet and sharp, with the heat of ginger underneath. Serve it with a curry, a hard cheese, a coarse pâté, or a plain cold chicken sandwich.
Dried mango, from the people who sell it
Drying a fruit means removing its water — about 85 % of the weight of a mango — and keeping the rest: the sugar, the fibre, the aromas. Hence an intensity fresh mango does not have, and hence its interest here: a chutney is precisely an exercise in concentration. The work is already done.
Two things set ours apart, and both matter for this recipe. It has no added sugar, so you decide how sweet the chutney is, not the drier. And it has no sulphiting agent, which is why it is amber rather than the bright orange of industrial strips. Sulphite preserves colour; we would rather do without, and the chutney will simply be darker for it.
The variety is Lippens, sweet and without sharpness — all the more reason to lean on the vinegar and the lemon, which are what balance a chutney.
On keeping: bag closed, dry, away from light. The strips may whiten slightly on the surface over time: that is sugar coming out, not mould, and it is no cause for concern.
The ingredients
For one 300 g jar, about 12 spoonfuls:
- 150 g organic dried mango, diced
- 200 g water
- 80 g cider vinegar
- 60 g soft brown sugar
- 60 g onion, finely chopped
- 20 g fresh ginger, grated
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 2 g cumin seeds
- 3 g salt
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper, to taste
The recipe, step by step
- Rehydrate the mango. Cut the strips into one-centimetre dice and cover with the warm water. Leave thirty minutes: they should turn supple without falling apart. Keep the soaking water — it is sweet and fragrant.
- Soften the onion. In a heavy-based pan over low heat, with a spoonful of oil, five minutes — it should turn translucent, never coloured.
- Wake the spices. Add cumin, ginger and garlic and stir for thirty seconds: the scent should rise all at once. That is your signal.
- Bring it together. Drained mango, soaking water, vinegar, sugar, salt, cayenne. Stir and bring to a bare simmer.
- Reduce for twenty minutes uncovered, at the smallest possible bubble, stirring now and then. The chutney is ready when a spoon drawn across the base leaves a trail that takes two seconds to close.
- Jar it hot and let it cool with the lid on. It thickens further as it cools: do not push the cooking too far.
The little extra
Wait three days before judging it. A chutney straight from the pan is aggressive: the vinegar dominates, the spices are dry, the sugar is flat. It needs seventy-two hours in the cold for everything to come together. It is the one thing that cannot be hurried, and it is what separates a decent chutney from a good one.
And never blend it: a chutney should keep its pieces. If yours seems too rustic, cut the mango smaller next time — do not reach for the blender.
What to swap
- The cider vinegar → white wine vinegar, same weight. Avoid balsamic, which flattens the mango.
- The brown sugar → honey, reduced by a quarter. More floral, and slightly runnier.
- The fresh ginger → 5 g ground ginger, added with the other spices. Not equivalent: the powder warms, the root bites.
- The dried mango → dried apricots, for a quite different but successful chutney. With fresh mango, use 400 g and add forty minutes of cooking.
Keeping and making ahead
In the fridge: 1 month in a sealed jar, and it only improves over the first fortnight. Always use a clean spoon.
In sterilised jars: several months at room temperature, if you know how to sterilise properly. If you do not, stay in the fridge: this chutney is too good to be risky.
In the freezer: 6 months, in portions. The texture loosens a little on thawing.
Equipment
A heavy-based pan — sugar catches quickly in a thin one. A fine grater for the ginger. And an airtight jar, scalded before filling.
Nutrition
We do not show a table for this recipe, and we would rather say so. Public composition data do not document unsulphited dried mango with no added sugar; what exists covers strips quite unlike ours. We do not want to put forward anything we cannot establish. An analysis of our batch is under way, and the values will appear here as soon as they exist.
What can be said without error: a chutney is a condiment. You eat a spoonful, not a bowlful.
Frequently asked questions
My chutney is too runny, what can I do?
Put it back on a low heat for five minutes, uncovered. But remember it thickens considerably as it cools: judge it cold, not hot.
Too sharp?
A further spoonful of sugar, stirred in while hot. The reverse works too: a dash of vinegar wakes up a chutney that has gone too sweet.
Must the mango really be rehydrated?
Yes. Thrown in dry, it soaks up all the liquid and you end up with a compact paste rather than a chutney.
Can it be made without sugar?
Not really. The sugar is not only there for taste: with the vinegar, it is what preserves the chutney. Remove it and you have a spiced compote to eat within the week.
The products in this recipe
What to try next
- Dark chocolate, dried mango and cashew mendiants — the other end of the bag, sweet this time.
- Cashew chicken with ginger and sesame — the chutney belongs beside it.
- Organic fonio: 5 recipes for 5 uses — including overnight fonio with mango.
