Homemade Healthy Chicken Tikka Masala

Instructions

Chicken Tikka

• 1

  Cut chicken breast into small cubed size pieces. Add ginger garlic paste, salt, Kashmiri red chili powder, turmeric powder, lemon juice and mix it well. Now let it sit for 10-15 mins until you prepare the second marinade.

• 2

  In a bowl, add the non-fat greek yogurt, garam masala, coriander powder, cumin powder, kasuri methi and mix it well to form a smooth marinade. Add the resting chicken pieces and mix well.

• 3

  Let the chicken marinate for at least 45 mins. Traditionally, mustard oil is also added to the marinade and the marination is done overnight.

• 4

  The best way to grill the chicken is to either use an air fryer or broil it in the oven. For this recipe, we broil it on high heat in the oven.

• 5

  Once you start seeing a char grill on the sides of the chicken, flip it and let the other side broil for 20 mins.

• 6

  Once the chicken is grilled, the chicken tikka is ready and keep it aside until you make the sauce.

Tikka Masala Sauce

• 1

  In a hot pan add avocado oil and let it heat. Once the avocado oil is hot, put the heat on low and add whole spices like cumin seeds, bay leaf, green cardamom, black cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick, and black pepper corns. Stir it on low heat so that it doesn’t burn. Once it starts leaving aroma add chopped onions and stir fry on medium-high heat until the onions are caramelized and get golden brown in color.

• 2

  Once the onions change color, add ginger garlic paste and stir fry again for 2 mins. The ginger garlic paste will start sticking to the pan, add little bit of water so that the ginger garlic paste doesn’t stick to the pan. Do not add too much water.

• 3

  Now add the tomatoes and put the heat on medium-low so that the tomatoes get soft and mushy. This will take some time but it is important that the onions, ginger, garlic, and tomato mixture gets extremely homogenized. This will help make the sauce nice and thick and remove the rawness of onions and tomatoes.

• 4

  While the onion and tomato mixture is being cooked on low heat, take cashews and make a paste of them in water using a grinder (it will be even better if you can soak the cashews in hot water for 15-20 mins prior to grinding, this will make the cashews softer). Once the onion and tomato mixture is homogenized add the cashew paste and mix it well.

• 5

  Now add in powdered spices like coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder, Kashmiri red chili powder, and salt. Add some water based on the consistency of sauce you like. We like thick gravy so we added 1/2 glass of water for this recipe.

• 6

  After adding water cook for few minutes then add the grilled chicken tikka. Cook for few more mins and that’s it.

• 7

  Garnish with fresh choped cilantro and serve hot with rice or naan!