Short answer: the one home test FSSAI documents for ghee is the iodine test: put half a teaspoon of ghee in a glass bowl, add two or three drops of tincture of iodine, and a blue colour means starch (such as mashed potato) has been added. Label, heat, palm and setting checks can raise red flags, but none of them proves purity. The most common fraud, blending ghee with cheaper vegetable oils or vanaspati, can only be confirmed in a lab.
Ghee is expensive to make, which makes it one of the most tempting dairy products to fake. In September 2026, Maharashtra's Food and Drug Administration raided a unit in Malad East, Mumbai, that was allegedly blending refined sunflower oil, vanaspati and branded ghee in boilers to make counterfeit ghee, and seized about 2,464 kg of stock (Free Press Journal).
This guide walks through five checks you can do at home, is honest about what each can and can't tell you, and explains what a lab looks for.
What Counts as Pure Ghee?
Under FSSAI's standards for dairy products, ghee is a fat derived exclusively from milk or milk products, with almost all the water and milk solids removed. The raw material must be free from added flavour, colour or preservative.
That means anything containing vegetable oil, vanaspati (hydrogenated vegetable fat), palm oil or starch is not ghee, however it's labelled. The common ways ghee gets adulterated are:
- Vegetable oils and vanaspati blended in to stretch expensive milk fat
- Animal body fats in some cases
- Starches such as mashed potato or sweet potato to add bulk
- Added colour and flavour to make a blend look and smell like the real thing
Test 1: The Iodine Test for Starch
This is Test 4 in FSSAI's DART book (Detect Adulteration with Rapid Test):
1. Take half a teaspoon of ghee in a transparent glass bowl.
2. Add 2 to 3 drops of tincture of iodine (available at any chemist).
Result: if it turns blue, mashed potato, sweet potato or another starch has been added. Pure ghee keeps its own colour.
What it can't tell you: vegetable oils and vanaspati contain no starch, so ghee blended with them passes this test.
Test 2: Read the Label
For packaged ghee, the label is your most reliable home check.
Check the name and ingredients. Pure ghee should list only milk fat, or milk, cream or butter. "Vanaspati", "vegetable fat", "edible oil", "blended" or "cooking medium" means it isn't pure ghee, even if the jar looks the part.
Check the FSSAI licence number. Every legitimate manufacturer must print one. You can look it up on FSSAI's FoSCoS portal (foscos.fssai.gov.in) to see who made it and what they're licensed for.
Be wary of unbranded or unlabelled ghee, especially loose ghee sold by weight, where there's nothing to check at all.
Test 3: The Heat Test
Heat a teaspoon of ghee in a small pan on low flame.
Pure ghee melts quickly into a clear, golden liquid and gives off a rich, nutty aroma.
Adulterated ghee may melt slowly, leave a residue, smell flat or oily, or take on an unusual colour.
This is a clue, not proof. Melting and aroma also vary with the milk used, how the ghee was made, and how old it is.
Test 4: The Palm Test
Place a small amount of ghee on your palm.
Pure ghee usually starts to melt from body heat within a short time.
Ghee blended with higher-melting fats such as vanaspati may stay solid or greasy for longer.
Again, treat this as a warning sign only. Room temperature, the season and the ghee's texture all affect how fast it melts, and a skilled blend can pass.
Test 5: The Set-and-Look Test
Melt a spoonful of ghee in a small transparent glass, then let it cool and set, in the fridge if the weather is warm.
Pure ghee usually sets fairly evenly, often with a grainy texture.
Ghee blended with other fats can sometimes separate into distinct layers, because different fats solidify at different temperatures.
FSSAI's DART book uses the same principle to detect other oils in coconut oil. For ghee it's only a clue: uniform setting doesn't prove purity, and some real ghee separates naturally.
What About the Acid Tests You See Online?
You'll find tests online that mix ghee with concentrated hydrochloric acid and sugar, or with furfural, to detect vanaspati. These are versions of the Baudouin test, which FSSAI's ghee standard requires to be negative.
We don't recommend doing them at home. Concentrated hydrochloric acid causes serious burns, gives off harmful fumes, and isn't a household chemical. If you suspect vanaspati in your ghee, send a sample to an FSSAI-notified lab instead. FSSAI's DART book notes that consumers can get food tested in these labs.
What Can Only a Lab Detect?
FSSAI's ghee standard sets limits that need laboratory equipment to check, including:
- Moisture: no more than 0.5%
- Milk fat: at least 99.5%
- Butyro-refractometer (BR) reading at 40°C: between 40.0 and 44.0
- Reichert Meissl (RM) value: at least 24.0
- Baudouin test: negative
- Beta-sitosterol: absent (it's a plant sterol, so its presence points to vegetable oil)
- Fatty acid composition: within set ranges for each fatty acid
These measurements are how regulators detect vegetable oils blended into milk fat, the problem home tests can't reliably catch.
That's why the source matters as much as any test. The same is true for paneer and milk: see our guides to checking if paneer is real, 5 home tests for pure milk, and what FSSAI data says about milk adulteration.
Where Doodh & Co Stands
Our ghee is made from our own milk:
Single-origin: all our milk comes from our own farm. We never buy in milk from other farms or mix it, so our ghee traces back to one source.
Licensed for ghee: we're an FSSAI-licensed dairy manufacturer (Lic. No. 11526088000179), and ghee is covered by our licence. You can look it up on FoSCoS.
Packed in glass jars, with the licence number on the label.
We deliver in Pune and Mumbai. See our ghee or browse all our dairy.
Conclusion
You can screen ghee at home: the iodine test catches added starch, the label tells you what's actually in the jar, and heat, palm and setting checks can each raise a red flag. What home tests can't reliably catch is vegetable oil or vanaspati blended into milk fat, the kind of fraud Maharashtra's FDA found in Mumbai in September 2026.
So test when you're unsure, skip the acid tests, and rely on the source: read labels, verify licence numbers, and buy ghee from a dairy that can tell you exactly which milk it's made from. If you're in Pune or Mumbai, see our ghee.