Chicken Tandoori
Thoroughly tested recipe that produces restaurant-quality succulent chicken tandoori at home with or without a grill.
- Cooking time60 mins
Calories648kcal
Tandoori chicken, named so because it is meant be cooked in a clay oven (tandoor), is a dish that was born in undivided Punjab. It went on to become one of the most well-known dishes of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely available all over India and Pakistan and everywhere the diaspora has immigrated. Tandoori chicken is also the base ingredient for the most well known Indian dish, chicken butter masala, or tikka masala as it is known in the West.
Tandoori chicken is made using fairly simple ingredients mixed in a marinade with yoghurt, then applied to the whole chicken. The chicken is usually a small bird—under a kilo, dressed and skin removed, although tandoori chicken is now made with wings, drumsticks, boneless chicken thigh (tikka kabab), etc.
The recipe is well known but it is tricky to get the proportions right. Most home recipes tend to use too much garlic and ginger. A good tandoori chicken should not smell of garlic, or any one ingredient in particular. If it is noticeably garlic-y then there was too much garlic. Similarly, the quantity of dried spices need to be just right, otherwise the spices will burn when cooking and produce a strange bitterness.
Our tandoori spice mix has been arrived at after testing many kilos of chicken tandoori because small errors are often not noticeable until you scale up a recipe. If you follow this, you are guaranteed to get a flavourful tandoori chicken. We are also launching our Tandoori Moshla mix which is even more flavourful because it is made from all whole spices instead of powdered spices that we use at home. The spices are ground fresh every few days and the date of grinding is printed on the label. So you always know how fresh your spice packet is.
As with any kabab, the thing to avoid at all costs is excess moisture. This means drying the chicken well before using, draining any excess water out after the first marinade, squeezing all water out of the curd/yoghurt before using (it should be as thick as cream cheese)—do everything you can to not add any water to the marinade. This is even more important for home ovens which are nowhere near as hot as traditional tandoors that can reach temperatures of 500º C and can retain that heat well because of their huge thermal mass. If you marinade is watery, your tandoori chicken will steam instead of searing.
Frequently Asked Questions
At what temperature should I set my oven for tandoori chicken?
The short answer is the highest temperature your oven will go. For most home ovens this is 230ºC or 250ºC. Tandoori chicken is originally cooked in a tandoor (clay oven). The temperatures inside a tandoori oven can reach 500ºC, but to cook kababs such as chicken tandoori, or chicken tikka, the tandoor is kept at a temperature range of 250º–300ºC. Of course, the difference between a tandoor and a home oven is not just the temperature. A tandoor has a much higher thermal capacity, meaning, it can hold a steady temperature even when cold food is introduced inside its chamber. This is not the case for home ovens. In a home oven when you open the door, the temperature drops. When you insert cold food, it takes home ovens some time to get back to its target temperature. So, it will usually take longer to cook your tandoori chicken in a home oven than it does in a tandoor.
How long does it take to cook tandoori chicken in the oven?
In a properly pre-heated 250ºC oven chicken wings take about 12 minutes (6 minutes each side), chicken tikka about 10 minutes, and chicken quarters about 20–25 minutes (10–12 minutes each side). These are only estimates. You should ideally use an instant-read thermometer to check the internal temperature in several spots to confirm that the chicken is safe to eat. For brown meat such as thigh, drumsticks, and wings, target 79ºC (a little more is okay with brown meat). For white meat such as breasts it should be 66ºC. Above that temperature white meat will become dry. If you don't have a thermometer to measure the temperature you should take out one kabab and check that it is fully cooked. Note the time using a stopwatch, so that you have a baseline for when you are cooking your next batch of tandoori chicken.
Can I bake chicken tandoori without an oven?
Most Indian kitchens don't have an oven. You can absolutely make good tandoori chicken on a stove on a iron tawa or cast-iron griddle. Use smaller cuts of chicken such as drumsticks, thighs, wings, etc., instead of whole chicken or chicken quarters so that the chicken cooks faster and more evenly. Make sure your pan is properly seasoned before you place your marinated tikka or tandoori kababs on it. To do this heat up the pan so that it is nearly smoking hot. Now pour a little neutral refined oil and coat the pan with this oil. The oil should start smoking immediately. Now you can cook your tandoori chicken on the pan without worrying about it sticking.
Can I bake chicken tandoori in an air fryer?
Yes, air-fryers or even toaster ovens with convection are great for making small quantities of tandoori chicken or chicken tikka at home.
Can I bake chicken tandoori in a microwave oven?
Microwave ovens are not good for making kababs. It will cook your tandoori chicken to the point that it is edible, but you won't get a nice char. Some microwave ovens tend to have a convection mode that is very similar to a regular baking oven. The temperatures will not be as high as a dedicated oven or an OTG, but that simply means you will have to bake the tandoori kababs longer.
What cuts of chicken are ideal for tandoori chicken?
Tandoori chicken in restaurants is usually made from whole chicken which are between 800 grams and 1 kilogram, dressed without skin. If you are buying live chicken try to find a bird under 1.3 kilograms live. If you don't have access to the kind of fabulous markets we have in Bengal, and are only shopping from malls and such, find a bird that is at least under 1.5 kilograms dressed. Anything larger should only be made into tandoori if divided into 8 or more pieces. Alternatively, chicken wings with skin on are the perfect mix of fat, collagen and meat for tandoori, as are chicken drumsticks. Even boneless thighs can be cut into 2–3 pieces and made into chicken tikka kabab—perfect for a Calcutta chicken roll, or to cook butter chicken or chicken tikka masala with. Chicken breasts can be made into tandoori, but try to butterfly or flatten them into cutlets before marinating and quickly searing on on a pan or a grill.
Is the spice mix for chicken and fish tikka the same?
Fish tikka requires fewer spices so as not to mask the delicate flavour of good fish. We have a separate fish tikka kabab video.
How long should tandoori chicken be marinated?
24 hours. It makes a huge difference. It is not because the marinade penetrates deeper (because it does not), but because of the curing action of the salt (and may be the yoghurt too) the texture of the chicken changes for the better, the flavours of the individual spices, ginger, garlic, sort of lose their edge and mellow out to produce a harmonious "tandoori" flavour. You can leave it in the marinade for up to 2 days. If you can't marinate for 24 hours, marinate for at least 8 hours.
Books in this recipe
Ingredients
First marination
- 1 kg chicken (wings or chicken quarters)
- 10 g salt
- 10 g lime juice
Tandoori moshla mix
- 5 g red chilli powder
- 8 g kashmiri red chilli
- 5 g cumin powder
- 3 g shahi gorom moshla
- 2 g cardamom powder
- 1 g kasuri methi
Besan roux
- 20 g mustard oil
- 1 black cardamom
- ¼ tsp jowan (carom seeds)
- 25 g besan (chickpea-flour)
Second marination
- 15 g tandoori moshla
- 3 g black salt
- 5 g salt
- 100 g hung yoghurt
- 15 g ginger paste
- 7 g garlic paste
- 20 g besan roux
- 30 g mustard oil
Miscellaneous
- butter
- chaat masala
- charcoal
Method
- Marinate the chicken with salt and lime juice. Set aside for an hour.
- Meanwhile hang your yoghurt, make the tandoori moshla, ginger paste, and garlic paste, and prepare the besan roux.
- For the besan roux, heat 20 g mustard oil and temper it with black cradmom and jowan. Then add the besan and roast until oil separates and it smells nutty. We need only 20 g of this besan roux for this recipe.
- Back to the chicken: if any water has come out of the chicken, discard it so that it is as dry as possible.
- Now marinate it with the tandoori moshla, besan roux, ginger paste, garlic paste, hung yoghurt, salt, black salt and mustard oil.
- Dhungar: If you are planning to barbeque the kababs, skip this step. If you are cooking them in the oven, you could perform a dhungar, which is a method that infuses a smoky flavour to the kababs in the absence of a tandoor/barbeque. To do this, burn a piece of charcoal over direct flame for about 10 minutes. Set a small metal bowl (or a DIY bowl fashioned from aluminium foil) in the middle of the marinated chicken pieces. When the charcoal is hot and ashy, use tongs to place it inside the little metal bowl, and pour the ghee on it. You will see thick white smoke emerge from the charcoal. Immediately cover the bowl with a heavy plate or aluminium foil to trap that smoke in. Wait for 5 minutes to allow the smokiness flavour to infuse the chicken, then discard the charcoal.
- Set the chicken in the fridge to marinate overnight (24 hours is best!)
- Preheat your oven to 250°C or the highest temperature it will go. Grease the oven grill.
- Skewer the kababs and place them in the hot oven.
- Cook for about 6 minutes per side (in case of wings), or about 8 minutes per side (in case of chicken quarters). The cooking time will vary based on the size of your chicken and temperature of your oven.
- When done, remove from the oven and brush on melted butter. Sprinkle some chaat moshla. Serve immediately.
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