Tandoori Chicken Recipe – Smoky Restaurant Style at Home

The best Tandoori Chicken! This simple Indian recipe will help you make Tandoori Chicken that is so delicate, juicy, moist, smokey, and delicious that it will blow your mind. Tandoori Murgh is a very popular style to grill chicken in Indian restaurants. It is eaten with Cilantro Chutney or Mint Chutney. People who love Indian food keep going back to the same restaurants, not knowing that it’s easy to make at home.

In this post, I’ll show you how to cook the best Tandoori Chicken in a variety of different methods, such as in the oven, on the stovetop griddle, in the air fryer, and over direct fire. If this is your first time making the dish, you could be wondering.

Table of Contents

About Tandoori Chicken

Tandoori chicken is a traditional Indian dish that is made by marinating chicken and then grilling it to perfection in a Tandoor, which is a clay oven that is shaped like a cylinder. The first step is to marinade the chicken overnight in yogurt, herbs, spices, and other things.

This marinade makes the chicken more soft, spicy, and tasty. Later, it is grilled in a tandoor. Traditionally, a tandoor gets its heat from burning wood or charcoal. The liquids from the dish flow over the hot charcoal as it cooks in this clay oven, giving it a smokey flavor. The char-

grilled chicken that comes out is the best—tender, juicy, and full of flavor.

Tandoori chicken supposedly originated during the Mughal era, according to sources. Some people think that Kundan Lal Gujral came up with it at Moti Mahal in Peshawar before India was split up. But that’s not what this post is about, so let’s just enjoy preparing this great dish at home.

Basic Ingredients for marinade

Chicken: Use large pieces of skinless and bone-in chicken, like thighs, drumsticks, and quarters (the back quarters). You can also use skinless whole chicken if you are feeding a lot of people. I have also cooked tandoori using chicken breasts before, and it worked.
Yogurt: Hung curd, which is thick strained yogurt, is used to prepare the tandoori marinade. It’s like Greek yogurt, except it tastes better. You can’t use runny homemade yogurt since it’s not thick enough to hold the chicken. You can use Greek yogurt or make your own hung curd using this recipe.
Ginger garlic: A paste made of ginger and garlic is used for a liquor. You may make your own ginger garlic paste by following the steps in this post or by finely grating equal amounts of fresh ginger and garlic. Don’t use them when they’re minced or chopped. Minced won’t taste the same as the paste or grated.
Salt: You can use kosher salt, sea salt, Himalayan salt, or a mix of your usual salt and kala namak (black salt). Don’t use kala namak if you’re using chaat masala. It gives the food a strong taste that is different.
Oil and fats: Mustard oil is the traditional choice, but any neutral cooking oil will do. Oil keeps some of the chicken’s juices inside and stops it from drying out.

Tandoori Spices

Tandoori Masala (spice blend): There are a lot of packaged tandoori spice blends on the market that are full of fake colors and preservatives that aren’t needed. So I mix my own spices, which you can see below. You mostly need garam masala, cumin powder, coriander powder, black pepper, chili powder, and turmeric. If you have it, you can also use chaat masala. It makes the marinade smell fantastic.
Red chili powder: Don’t use food coloring; you don’t need it. Kashmiri red chile powder is an important part of a tandoori marinade because of its bright red color, taste, and spiciness. It’s a chili that doesn’t get too hot and gives your food a red color. But if you want your tandoori chicken to be really spicy, spray it with chili oil, which I talk about in the recipe below. If you want a smokey taste, use smoked paprika instead of half of the Kashmiri.
Kasuri methi: These are dried fenugreek leaves that are thought to be the best Indian herbs. A little bit of these will make your Tandoori Chicken go from decent to great. You can’t replace this, so if you don’t have it, you can just leave it out.
Chaat Masala: I like to add a little chaat masala to my tandoori chicken, which makes it even more delicious. It is a blend of amchur/mango powder, kala namak/black salt, and asafetida (hing) together with some of the spices used in garam masala. It’s really hard to make the store-bought ones at home, so utilize them if you have them, and don’t worry if you can’t locate them.

How to prepare Tandoori Chicken (Step-by-Step Pictures)

Get the marinade ready

The main ingredient in the marinade is Greek yogurt, which is also called hanging curd. All the whey and liquid have been squeezed out of it, so it’s just curd. Please follow this link to make hanging curd if you don’t have Greek yogurt. Put the following things in a mixing bowl:

½ cup of Greek yogurt (hung curd)
1 tablespoon of ginger garlic paste (or ¾ tablespoon of each grated)
One teaspoon of garam masala (or more if you want)
1 to 2 teaspoons of Kashmiri red chili powder (or use paprika or a smoked hot chili powder; use 1 tsp for medium heat and 2 tsps for extreme heat)
¼ teaspoon of crushed black pepper (powder)
One & half teaspoons of coriander powder (daniya powder)
Half teaspoon of cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt (or 1/4 teaspoon of each sea salt and black salt/kala namak)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric (haldi)
One & Half teaspoons kasuri methi (dry fenugreek leaves)

Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of amchur powder or mango powder, or half a teaspoon of chaat masala. Don’t add too much. Use as needed based on how sour your yogurt is.
Add 1½ tablespoons of oil as well. You can use any kind of cooking oil or neutral oil, such avocado, grapeseed, or refined coconut oil. People in India use mustard oil to give food a unique taste. You can use it or any other cooking oil you like.
Mix everything together fully and taste the marinade. Add more salt or spices to taste. The picture indicates that the marinade should be thick, not runny. If the marinade is too runny, it will leak moisture out of the pan and the chicken won’t hold the spices well.

Marinate Chicken

Use paper towels to pat the chicken dry. You can use chicken thighs, legs, or quarters that weigh between ½ and ¾ kg (1.1 to 1.5 lbs). Next, cut deep into the chicken.
Soak the chicken in the marinade for a long time.
Cover and put in the fridge for at least six hours or overnight. Don’t shorten the time you relax; it won’t work as well. You may keep this in the fridge for up to 48 hours.
To make the chili oil for a hot version, blend 1 teaspoon of red chili powder with 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil, or just melt 1 tablespoon of butter.

Roast Tandoori Chicken in the Oven

how to make tandoori chicken

Roast in the oven: For at least 15 to 20 minutes, heat the oven to 470 F (240 C). (If you’re using a smaller oven, such an OTG, warm it to 430 F (220 C).
Put foil on a baking tray to make cleanup easier. Put a wired rack on top of it and spray or grease oil on the rack. Put the marinated chicken on the wires rack. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, basting with remaining marinade, chili oil, or melted butter. Then flip the chicken over. Look at the 12-minute mark.

Bake for 12 to 15 more minutes. Set the oven to broil and put the tray on the top shelf. Broil for 3 to 4 minutes, or until you see scorched patches. Depending on how big your chicken and oven are, you may need to change the timing. If your oven doesn’t have a broil setting, move the rack to the top and roast for 3 minutes, or until the food is slightly browned.

An instant-read thermometer should read 165 to 170 F (75 C) when you put it in the thickest section of the chicken to see whether it’s done. Go to the following section if you wish to smoke the chicken.

Stovetop method – Grilling in pan

Get a pan or skillet hot. Put 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil on the surface.
Put the chicken in the skillet or pan when the oil is heated. Set the heat to medium.
Flip the pieces after 3 to 4 minutes. Put the marinade on them and flip them over after 3 to 4 minutes.
In the meantime, put some red chili powder in a small bowl. Combine it with the oil. This is not required. Put it on the tandoori chicken.
Cook them, adjusting the flame as needed until they are done. When the chicken is done cooking, use a fork to poke it and see whether the meat falls off the bone easily. This is a sign that the chicken is done cooking. If you put an instant-read thermometer in the thickest portion, it should read 165 to 170 F (75 C).

Without a tandoor, smoking chicken

This is another optional step. Use a tong to hold a piece of wood coal over a candle or gas stove until it is very hot. It takes roughly three to four minutes. Put it in a steel or disposable aluminum cup when it gets hot. Pour half a teaspoon of ghee or neutral oil over the heated coal right away. It will start to smoke right away. Put a cover or aluminum foil over the skillet or baking dish and let it smoke for 5 to 7 minutes.

Lastly, use the drippings or melted butter to brush the Tandoori chicken. Serve with cilantro or mint chutney and sliced onions, carrots, and lemon wedges. Turmeric Rice, Onion Salad, and Cucumber Raita are three dishes you can add to your menu.

Air Fryer Tandoori Chicken

Set the air fryer to 390 F or 200 C. Put the chicken in the basket and air fried it for 10 minutes on each side, or until the chicken is fully cooked and the internal temperature reaches 165 F.
After it’s done, brush the tandoori chicken with the leftover marinade or a mix of red chili paste and oil. Air fried for two more minutes. Brush with mustard oil or butter to get the real taste.

Grill in Outdoor Grill

Get the outdoor grill ready for medium-high heat.
Grease the grate well with oil. Take out the extra marinade from the chicken and put it on the grill that has already been prepared.
Cook them for 5 to 6 minutes, then flip them over. After 5 to 6 minutes, turn the marinade over and baste it on the top side. The size of the chicken pieces will affect how long they need to cook.
It takes roughly 27 to 30 minutes to cook the Tandoori chicken all the way through. Put a meat thermometer in the thickest section of the chicken and roast it until it reaches 165 F (75 C). Use some mustard oil or butter to brush it.

Tandoori Chicken Recipe (Smoky Restaurant Style)