Next to Chicken Tikka Masala and Butter Chicken, Tandoori Chicken is probably the best known Indian chicken recipe. This is a super easy, super delicious, and just really pretty oven grilled chicken recipe that can also be grilled over charcoal if you have that handy. Spicy, fragrant perfectly cooked chicken served with a quick two ingredient kind-of raita. We polished these off in nothing flat with a side salad. So, so good.
Cooking Notes
Garam Masala is a generic Indian spice blend. Properly in India everyone makes their own and they are often family secrets. Here in the west it’s probably easier just to try to buy a quality garam masala, like Simply Organic’s Garam Masala. Garam masala includes pretty much all the traditional Indian spices.
Why the other spices then? Like store bought chili powder, because garam masala is generic, it’s often not tuned to your specific dish, and the spices are often not as strong and fresh as they could be. In this case, I wanted more cumin and coriander flavor, and also wanted the chicken prettier, so added turmeric too (which has loads of health benefits, besides being pretty).
Although this is dinner and chill, crushing your own coriander is still a great idea. Whole coriander keeps longer in your pantry, and the difference is like freshly crushed pepper vs ground pepper. There’s no contest, it’s not even the same spice. On the other hand, crushing cumin is a major pain , and fresh turmeric stains everything you own, so stick with the ground versions of these spices. Buy small amounts and seal tightly.
Dry roasting the spices blooms them and opens up their flavors. You can really smell the difference after just a minute. Be sure to turn on your hood vent for this step.
Lastly, traditionally tandoori chicken is colored red from either red food coloring or kashmiri chili, neither of which are dinner and chill style ingredients, but feel free to use these if you have them.
What do you need?
A baking sheet with a rack that fits, and an oven.
How do you serve it?
We served ours simply, with a two ingredient raita made of the remaining yogurt and equal parts chopped cilantro. You can also serve with naan, basmati rice, or go really nuts and have an Indian feast with biryani, daal, and butter chicken meatballs.
The Dinner & Chill Super Easy 8 Ingredient Tandoori Chicken Recipe
Serves 2
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp coriander (preferably fresh crushed)
- 1 tsp tumeric
- 1 tablespoon garam masala
- 1 tsp Indian chili powder or cayenne powder (very optional)
- 1/2 tub (8oz) yogurt (preferably Greek)
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1/2” ginger, crushed
- 1lb chicken drumsticks
1. Season your chicken with salt and pepper.
2. Toast your spices in a dry pan over medium heat until fragrant (1 min)
3. Combine with yogurt, ginger, and garlic, and marinate chicken for a minimum of 30 minutes.
4. Preheat your oven to 500ºF. Brush off as much marinade as possible and place chicken on a rack over a foil lined baking sheet.
5. Broil your chicken for 15 minutes, checking back every few minutes to ensure your chicken isn’t burning.
6. Flip the chicken and broil 15 minutes on the other side, or until chicken hits 155ºF in the center.
7. Serve immediately.
love this, thank you, love the pictoral walk-through, necessary since I’ve never made this dish!
nice