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We love Tandoori Chicken, and when we started eating clean, we missed not being able to go out to dinner and have some of our old favorites. Indian food was definitely one of those things we craved but we didn’t know exactly what restaurants were adding to the food they brought us. Tandoori Chicken has always been a favorite, so we had to recreate this dish we knew and loved. This recipe was a hit the first time we made it with the family.
One thing we like about this Tandoori Chicken recipe is you can keep clean-up fairly easy. Just assemble all the ingredients in a gallon ziplock bag, then place it in your fridge for 6 hours. Then when you’re ready to cook, you only have to dirty one dish. We love using our 15″ cast iron pan for this dish! It’s really big and makes for such a beautiful presentation when complete!
Look at this spice combination, it’s so beautiful and adds such traditional Indian flavors.
Love the addition of fresh cilantro to this dish, this is a must add ingredient!
We like adding everything to a gallon zip lock bag which makes for easy assemble and clean-up.
Now just seal the bag, mix all the ingredients together, add the chicken thighs, and place in the fridge for 6 hours or until ready to cook. Leaving it longer will not hurt the recipe. Easy as that!
Pull it out and make sure to pat dry the chicken with a paper towel before cooking it your 15″ cast iron pan! Every time we make this dish our family eats it up. Serve over cauli-rice or white rice and make sure to drizzle the sauce on top of the rice, it’s so flavorful! The only bad thing is we NEVER have leftovers!
Tandoori Chicken
Ingredients
- 9 chicken thighs
- 1/2 tbsp curry powder
- 1/2 tbsp red pepper flakes
- 1/2 tbsp salt
- 3/4 tsp ground ginger
- 3/4 tsp smoked paprika
- 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 1/2 cups coconut milk
- 1/2 cup cilantro chopped
Instructions
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Whisk together above ingredients and place them in a gallon ziplock bag, add 9 chicken thighs. Close ziplock and massage marinade into chicken. Place the mixture in the fridge to marinate for 6 hours.
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Preheat oven to 350.
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Pat dry your marinated chicken.
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On the stovetop, heat a cast iron skillet (or oven safe skillet) on med-high heat with a few tbsp of olive oil. Brown the chicken, skin side down for approximately 5 minutes or until the chicken is a nice golden brown.
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Turn the chicken over, skin side up. Pour remaining marinade over chicken.
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Bake chicken until it reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees, which is approximately 20 minutes.
This recipe is AMAZING! I have made it several times now and the spice combo is bang on. Love love love.
The only change I make is in the preparation. I marinade the chicken in the spices, sear the chicken in the cast iron, and THEN add the coconut milk (as i put it in the oven). I like the sear the chicken gets without the coconut milk on it.
I am making this for dinner again tomorrow. Thanks so much for this wonderful recipe!
That is a great idea, we think that would be amazing too! We do pat dry the chicken before searing them in the cast iron so they get a nice golden brown texture. Glad you’re enjoying the recipe, we just made Tandoori Chicken last week!
This looks delish! Do you use regular or light coconut milk?
Either will work just fine, but we usually use the light.
So you cook the chicken in the same marinade from the bag?
Yes you do use the remaining ingredients from the bag to cook the chicken in. It adds tons of flavor and makes a nice sauce.
I loved Tandoori Chicken and missed it when I decided that “lactose intolerant” also meant yogurt. I did make a version of the recipe I had with my own thoughts on the quantity of coconut milk (and other spices) but I knew I was missing something. Thanks for a recipe with measurements! (I’m not a guess-and-toss-in kind of cook.)
You’re welcome.
I’m so in love with this recipe. It’s my go to for family dinners while doing the Whole30. Satisfies all my cravings and keeps me full. I added chopped zucchini to the last one and it turned out wonderful! So much flavor. Cant thank you enough for this recipe!
thank you so much we love Tandoori Chicken too!!!
I am so glad I made this dish for day 28 of Whole30. This is exactly the kind of dish I need to finish strong and shake off food fatigue. My boyfriend said this is the the most flavorful chicken dish I’ve ever made so this recipe is definitely a keeper!
This was totally worth the effort of deboning and trimming the chicken to have thighs with skins on. I added a little cayenne pepper, doubled the curry spice using vadouvan in addition to regular curry powder, but will add a little more next time to add a little more flavor and punch up the spicy level I like about Indian food. I threw in a handful of raw sliced red onion on top of the onions before baking and it also added a great punch of flavor.
Cannot thank you enough for sharing this recipe. This is such a winner and I felt like no compromises were made.
Thank you for the great review. We love all the changes you made to personalize it!!!
Packed full of Flavor!
I marinaded for 2 days, browned the bone-in chicken thighs tops in my 12″ s/s skillet in batches, (not patting dry) then since my large oven is not working I put all that would fit (8) on a half baking sheet and poured the marinade on to, probed it for 160 and baked in my countertop Breville Convection Oven.
Then sliced some Zucchini and cooked them in the fond left in the skillet.
BIG HIT on both count.
I’ll post a picture on your Facebook page
Is this canned coconut milk or just regular from the refrigerated area?
Full fat canned coconut milk!
I am excited to make this for dinner tonight. I am wondering what the nutritional information is?