Kurien was born on 26 November 1921 in Calicut, Madras Presidency, British India (now Kozhikode, Kerala, India) to P. K. Kurien in a Malayali Anglican Christian family.[1] His father was a government civil surgeon.[2] Kurien did his schooling at Diamond Jubilee Higher Secondary School, Gobichettipalayam, Tamil Nadu when his father worked at the government hospital there.

He graduated in physics from Loyola College affiliated to University of Madras in 1940 and received bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the College of Engineering.

His father died when he was 22 years old and he moved under the tutelage of his maternal grand-uncle Cherian Matthai in Trichur.[2] He wanted to join the Indian army as an engineer but joined Tata Steel Technical Institute, in Jamshedpur as per the wishes of his mother from where he graduated.

Kurien applied for a scholarship provided by the Government of India and chose to study dairy engineering. He was sent to the Imperial Institute of Animal Husbandry in Bangalore where he spent nine months before being sent to United States on a government scholarship.

On returning, he increased the production of condensed milk at Amul, the import of which was banned by Government of India two years later. H. M. Dalaya, who Kurien persuaded to stay back at Anand after a visit from United States helped develop a process of making skim milk powder and condensed milk from buffalo milk instead of from cow milk.[23] In India, buffalo milk was plentiful, while cow milk was in short supply and Amul competed successfully against Nestle and later against Glaxo for baby food.[24]

Jawaharlal Nehru, then Prime minister also cut imports of butter in steps with Kurien promising and delivering an incremental increase of his production to eliminate the dependency on imported butter, especially from New Zealand.