The other night I decided to be a bit adventurous and make a new dish. On the menu: Chicken Tikka Masala! I have only eaten Indian food a handful of times, and I have certainly never cooked it, but a craving led to a spice cabinet upgrade, and here we are!
I used this recipe on allrecipes.com and made just a few adjustments. Below is the original ingredient list, noting any changes:
- 2 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)*
- I used regular butter
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground ginger*
- I used ginger paste
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 (14 oz) can tomato sauce
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 tsp paprika
- 1 tbsp white sugar
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil*
- I substituted with olive oil
- 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves*, cut into bite-size pieces
- I used chicken tenders
- 1/2 tsp curry powder
- 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste (optional)
- 1 tsp white sugar, or to taste (optional)
The recipe makes 6 servings and takes
–15 min for preparation
–1 hr 5 min cooking time
-Ready in: 1 hr 20 min
Now we’ll get into the steps involved. This post covers an overview of my experience with the recipe. For more detailed instructions on the cooking process, look to this site for times and steps. I broke the website’s steps down to better demonstrate how I moved through the recipe.
STEP 1: Ingredient gathering & spice cabinet upgrade
The amount of ingredients might seem a bit daunting; however, this was the most difficult part of the recipe (and wasn’t difficult at that). Once you get everything you need, it’s just a matter of getting it all into the same pot. Don’t let all of the spices intimidate you!
STEP 2: Cook onion and garlic in the ghee/butter. Stir in cumin, salt, ginger, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and turmeric.
STEP 3: Add tomato sauce
Bring the tomato, onion, garlic, and spice mixture to a boil. Next, turn the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
STEP 4: Add cream, paprika and sugar
Mix cream, paprika and sugar into the mixture. Bring the sauce to simmer and cook until thickened. The website suggests this will take 10 to 15 minutes. I had to keep stirring frequently, as the sauce tended to separate before thickening.
STEP 5: Cook the chicken
In a separate pan, begin to cook the chicken in oil over medium heat and add curry powder. The website says to sear the chicken until lightly browned but still pink inside; however, I get very nervous when cooking chicken (still a beginner here), so I cooked mine through.
Next, add the chicken to the sauce and simmer until the chicken is no longer pink. In my case, I just let it all cook together for the half hour it recommended. You can then add in the optional salt and sugar to taste.
Below is how my dish turned out! I found it hard to make it look appealing on camera, but trust me when I say that it tasted delicious!
Overall, this recipe is certainly worth a try. Mine came out very spicy, so I would recommend keeping an eye on the spices if you’re sensitive to spicy foods. It made great leftovers, and I froze a bit to last into the next week. As I mentioned before, the most effort involved was gathering together all of the spices and ingredients, but after that, it was pretty easy to put it all together!
Note: I have no affiliation with allrecipes.com, Trader Joe’s, or any other brand or person that may be involved with this post. I just wanted to share my experience with the recipe! All opinions are my own.
