Best Home Tandoor Ovens
for Sale in the USA

About Home Tandoor Ovens

What is the Best Home Tandoor Oven — and Why Does Clay Matter?

A home tandoor oven is a clay cooking vessel that uses charcoal or wood to reach temperatures of at least 900 Degrees F that creates an all-directional heat which is the hallmark of the true Indian tandoori style of cooking. Unlike the conventional grilling, roasting or convection baking process, the tandoor’s heating process is an all-rounded one, where heat is radiated from all surfaces (up, down and side) at the same time, resulting in the characteristic combination of browned, slightly charred outside and sealed, succulent inside texture that is impossible to achieve with all the other cooking methods.

The tandoor is a cooking pot used all over the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and Middle East for centuries. By its design, its design does not need to change. The cylindrical clay pot is heated from the bottom through charcoal or wood and reaches temperature levels that only domestic ovens can come close to — and keeps them for a long time, and with a thermal stability that only the mass and porosity of natural clay can ensure. This vessel is all that makes a dish tandoori chicken, seekh kebabs, naan bread, paneer tikka and a dozen other dishes. Nothing else — gas-fired, steel-lined or electric — can produce an equivalent result.

The Tandoor Morni R-series home tandoor ovens, the Mini Clay Tandoor Oven Home R26 (20×26 inches), Wood Fired Tandoor Oven R28 (20×28 inches) and Large Outdoor Tandoor Oven R32 (20×32 inches) introduce this cooking method to the North American home in a certified portable, professionally engineered package. All three have been built with the real hand selected Indian clay, reach 900 Degrees F+ on charcoal or wood, and are certified to CSA Sanitation: NSF/ANSI 4 for food safety — a certification no other competitor brand has been able to attain on any home model sold in the USA.

Real Indian clay is irreplaceable.

There are stainless steel interior home tandoor ovens available in the global market as clay tandoor ovens. They are not the same and the contrast is not superficial. The thermal properties of clay and steel are completely different, and they directly affect the cooking.

Steel heats up quickly, cools quickly. It has a high thermal conductivity and a low thermal mass. When a batch of cold meats marinated with water is added to a steel-interior tandoor at 800 Degrees F, the steel will give up its heat to the food very rapidly, as it cools more quickly than the charcoal below the fuel. The outcome is uneven cooking: the first batch crisp and browned perfectly with the second and third getting progressively less and less crisp and browned as the oven tries to readjust the temperature between rounds.

Clay does just the opposite. Heats slowly, but during the heating process, it establishes a huge thermal reserve in the mass of its walls. The heat stored in the body of the clay is not just at the surface of the tandoor at 900 Degrees F, but the body of the clay is heated. The clay is loaded when it is heated from all sides: the walls above, the sides and the radiant heat from the charcoal below. There is not nearly as great a drop in temperature, the recovery is very quick and the temperature stays the same in the cooking environment for multiple consecutive rounds. The heat behavior that creates the surface char and moisture in the center is what gives the traditional tandoori style its cooking method — only clay can do this.

In addition to its porosity, Clay also has another unique characteristic – it can slowly absorb the aromatic hydrocarbons and carbon compounds of charcoal and wood smoke when used repeatedly. The interior walls of a Tandoor Morni clay pot absorb the seasoning used in cooking, and the accumulated seasoning is re-volatilised with each subsequent cooking session, resulting in a rich smoky base note to all things cooked in the pot. A Tandoor Morni clay pot that is 2–3 years old can deliver more flavor and complexity than a fresh pot. The oven is continually refined with use and no metallic appliance can ever do that. This is the reason why a tandoor from a restaurant that has been operating for 5 years, can cook food that is deeper than a new tandoor.

All clay pots, which are used in the Tandoor Morni home range, are hand selected from a known chain of production and screened for uniformity, density and structural strength prior to installation. Clay is naturally formed and mineralised, and is handmade and handfired. No synthetic coating, no substitute for what can’t be replaced, no internal liners.

The Science Of Radiant Heat — How A Home Tandoor Oven Actually Cooks

Knowing how a tandoor works gives the home buyer insight into what he can expect to get from purchasing a tandoor and why it is such a unique outdoor cooking appliance.

Once the charcoal light is lit at the bottom of the clay chamber and it has been left to preheat for 35–50 minutes, the clay walls are heated through. The interior of the oven now becomes a radiant heat environment — heat is radiated inward from all surfaces at once, rather than being focused in one direction, like on a grill or convection oven. The tandoor is filled with food that is heated from every direction simultaneously.

This all translates into the soft, spicy, flavorful, and aromatic nature of tandoori cuisine. The barbecue has a very strong radiant heat from the clay walls that caramelises and chars the outside of meats quickly, and the juices are trapped in the meat due to the exterior being caramelised. The heat transfer due to convection from the charcoal below heats the interior from the bottom. It gives the dry, burnt surface and the moist, savory interior that is so much a part of a tandoori chicken’s appeal — which can’t be achieved on a grill, convection oven, or gas flame.

The same is true with naan bread. As soon as the clay wall comes in contact with the dough, it absorbs moisture from the clay in the first few seconds. This fast transfer of the moisture results in the exterior of the dough hardening and crisping, while the inside steam and expand. The end product is an airy, slightly charred, blistered outside and soft, layered inside naan that just can’t be achieved on a gas hob, domestic oven or pizza stone. The clay wall is able to do something that other cooking surfaces cannot.

The Mini Clay Tandoor Oven Home R26 (20×26 inches), R28 (20×28 inches) and R32 (20×32 inches) have the same temperature ceiling as a full-size restaurant tandoor at 900 Degrees F. The food volume per session is the only difference — otherwise, the temperature, method and clay are the same.

The reasons why NSF/ANSI 4 Certification is important to home buyers.

In the United States and Canada, commercial kitchen equipment is independently certified by a third-party food safety entity called CSA Sanitation: NSF/ANSI 4 Standard. It is three-part certification by an independent body (not the manufacturer) and encompasses the safety of food contact materials, cleanability of surfaces and construction standards that prevent the entry of bacteria. The same standard used for the equipment in all licensed commercial kitchens in the USA.

Only Tandoor Morni has this certification for its residential tandoors in the USA home tandoor market. This is included with every Tandoor oven in the Tandoor Morni range: Mini Clay Tandoor Oven Home R26 (20×26 inches), R28 (20×28 inches) and R32 (20×32 inches). Competitors such as Luxury Tandoors and Gulati Tandoors sell uncertified tandoors with no independent food safety validation of any sort.

To the home buyer, NSF/ANSI 4 certification equates directly to a number of things. Clay and stainless steel as construction materials have been independently tested and proven to be food-safe, rather than just manufacturer-proclaimed as food-safe. The design is cleanable, no food or bacterial debris is trapped in joints or crevices. The oven complies with the equipment certification requirements for licensed outdoor food service events such as farmers markets, school fundraisers, community events and catering events where the health department requires NSF-certified equipment documentation. The NSF/ANSI 4 certification on the Large Outdoor Tandoor Oven R32 (20×32 inches) is the key between being allowed to operate or turned away for buyers who cook at home and at outdoor events.

In a marketplace where there are multiple brands of uncertified home tandoors with no third party food safety certification, NSF/ANSI 4 is not a selling point. It is a real, independently certified quality, material safety and accountability commitment – and it’s a standard that only Tandoor Morni has met.