Chicken jalfrezi recipe: chicken Jalfrezi or zalfrezi is an Indian-Pakistan chicken recipe with tomatoes, onions, capsicum, and spices cooked with generous amounts of ginger and garlic.
A popular restaurant dish, chicken jalfrezi recipe is very easy to make at home if you have the mostly basic ingredients in hand.
I made this one pot chicken recipe on a weeknight for a quick dinner with some rice and loved its simplicity and taste.
Jalfrezi is supposedly one of those dishes that were passed on by the British Raj to India and Pakistan. It started off as means to use up leftovers and like many dishes born the same way, grew in popularity especially in Indian and Pakistani restaurants.
This chicken jalfrezi recipe is not that different from my vegetable jalfrezi and paneer jalfrezi recipes, the key difference being the star ingredient, of course.
The quickest way to make this dish is to prepare all the vegetables, clean and cut them, and line up all other items before putting that cooking pan on the stove.
One thing worth pointing out is that typically meat-based jalfrezi recipes involve marinating the meat the in some spices before cooking it. I didn’t follow that step because I wanted an easy weeknight dinner on the table in 30 minutes. Check out the notes if you have some time in hand and want to try jalfrezi the “proper” way.
Other chicken recipes you will love:
Madurai-style Chicken 65
Delicious Indian chicken starter – Chicken Majestic
Dry chilli chicken recipe
Easy chicken curry in coconut milk
Chicken thoran – dry chicken recipe with coconut
Chicken Jalfrezi Recipe
Ingredients
- 250 grams of chicken breast cut into 3" long strips
- 2 tbsp of oil
- 1 tsp of cumin seeds jeera
- 1 cup of onions cut into small cubes
- 1 tsp of minced garlic
- 1 tsp of grated ginger
- 1/2 tsp of red chilli powder adjust to taste
- 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder
- 2 tsp of coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp of cumin powder
- 1 tsp of canned tomato paste optional - see notes
- 1 cup of chopped ripe tomatoes
- 1 cup of green capsicum cut into 3" long strips
- 1/2 tsp of sugar optional
- 1 tsp of kasuri methi dried fenugreek leaves
- 1 tsp of garam masala
- 2 tbsp of chopped coriander leaves for garnish
Instructions
- Prepare all the ingredients and keep ready
- Heat oil in a pan and add the cumin seeds
- When they sizzle and turn brown, add the onions
- Sauté until the onions turn soft and a light brown around the edges
- Add the ginger and garlic and fry for a minute until fragrant
- Add the spices - coriander, cumin powder, chilli powder, turmeric - and fry again for a minute until they turn fragrant. Take care not to burn the spices at this stage by keeping the flame low
- Now add the tomato paste (if using), cut tomatoes, and capsicum
- Mix well, add 1/2 cup water, and cook for a minute
- Then add the chicken strips, mix again, and cook covered for 10-12 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through
- Check in between to give the curry a stir and keep heat to medium- low. The chicken will let out water while cooking so the dish shouldn't burn but keep an eye on it every 3-4 minutes by giving everything a good stir
- Once the chicken is cooked, uncover and cook on a medium flame in the open pan for a few more minutes. The gravy should be thicker by now and not watery (which is what we want)
- Add salt, sugar, garam masala, and kasuri methi
- Stir, check the taste to see everything is balanced well
- Add coriander leaves at the end and mix again before removing from the heat
- Serve chicken jalfrezi hot with rice or rotis
Step by step pictures to prepare Chicken Jalfrezi
When they sizzle and turn brown, add the onions
Sauté until the onions turn soft and a light brown around the edges and add the ginger and garlic and fry for a minute until fragrant
Add the spices – coriander, cumin powder, chilli powder, turmeric – and fry again for a minute until they turn fragrant.
Take care not to burn the spices at this stage by keeping the flame low
Now add the tomato paste (if using), cut tomatoes, and capsicum
Cook covered for 10-12 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through, stirring occasionally
The chicken will let out water while cooking so the dish shouldn’t burn but keep an eye on it every 3-4 minutes by giving everything a good stir
Once the chicken is cooked, uncover and cook on a medium flame in the open pan for a few more minutes.Add salt, sugar, garam masala, and kasuri methi
Add coriander leaves at the end and mix again before removing from the heat
Chicken jalfrezi can be served hot with vegetable pulao, chapatis, or even plain rice.
Note: adding canned tomato paste gives a deep colour to the dish. You can omit and just use tomato puree or replace the tomato paste and the cubed tomato with 1 cup canned tomato and its juices.
For Chicken Jalfrezi recipe in Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Malay, please use the Google translate button in the sidebar.
Turned out delicious.. Thanks for d recipe 🙂
Turned out delicious. Shall try the paneer version of it another day. Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Thanks Varun!
Testing out first comment for Chicken Jalfrezi recipe.