Tandoori chicken recipe, learn how to make tandoori chicken at home baked in your regular oven. If you save some time for marination, tandoori chicken works as a great starter recipe when you are entertaining.
Growing up, tandoor-baked dishes were not part of our menu whether we were eating our or at home. Kottayam had no good North Indian restaurant from what I can remember and we invariably defaulted to Indian Chinese food during Monthly eating out routine. Not that I am complaining, I love me some chilli chicken and fried rice no doubt, but it took me 23 years and a move to Hyderabad to truly relish and appreciate a good tandoor-baked dish be it nan or tandoori chicken and kebabs.
The smoky, charred look and taste of a tandoori dish is hard to replicate exactly at home, in my opinion, but you can get very close if you use the right ingredients and use the right temperature to bake the dishes in your regular oven. I had bookmarked this tandoori chicken recipe years ago on Radhika’s website and since then, it’s been on my mind.
I rarely buy chicken to cook at home (whatever you see in the blog is it and I space out cooking with meat at home by a few weeks at least) but one day, I set out to buy all the ingredients and get this tandoori chicken preparation out of my to-do list and into this blog.
The key to a good homemade tandoori chicken recipe is the marination. If you get that right, the rest will fall into place pretty easily. The marinade can be adjusted and adapted to your taste but I would recommend not skipping any of the steps or ingredients needed. The next crucial part is the baking itself. We use very high temperatures for the baking and so it’s important to pre-heat your oven and get it really hot before cooking the chicken.
If you love Indian chicken recipes, let me share a few of my favourites:
Dry chilli chicken
Andhra green chilli chicken
Chettinad pepper chicken
Madurai chicken 65 recipe
Chicken majestic
Chicken thoran
Tandoori Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
Prepare
- A large refrigerator box or ziplock bag for marination
- Aluminium foil for baking
- Green chutney lime wedges, and raw onions for serving
For Marination
- 4 chicken leg pieces with skin on
- 3/4 cup thick plain yogurt or curd
- 1/4 cup cubed onion
- 1 clove of garlic use 3-4 if the smaller Indian variety
- A small piece of ginger
- 1 tbsp fresh lime juice
- 1/2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
- 1 green chilli optional
- 1 tsp garam masala
- A few drops of red food colour optional
- Salt to taste
Before Baking
- 2-3 tsp oil
To serve
- Lemon wedges
- Raw onion slices
- Green chutney
Instructions
Marinating the chicken
- It's best to marinate the chicken for 8 hours minimum or ideally overnight
- Clean the chicken legs and make deep slits into the flesh part making sure your knife touches bone each time and it's deep enough. This will ensure that the marinade will go deep into the chicken pieces
- In a blender, blend the 3/4 cup yogurt, 1/4 cup cubed onion, 1 clove of garlic, a small piece of ginger, 1/2 tsp chilli powder, 1 tbsp lime juice, 1 tsp garam masala, salt to taste, and a few drops of red food colour (if using), until it's a smooth paste
- Place the chicken pieces in a bowl or a ziplock bag and pour the marinade in
- Using your fingers, turn the chicken pieces in the marinade until well coated.
- Refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight
- Baking the chicken tandoori
- When you are ready to bake the chicken, prepare the oven by pre-heating to 450F/230C. If your oven doesn't have this setting, just turn it to the maximum heat setting
- As your oven pre-heats, line a baking sheet with aluminium foil and grease with oil
- Take out your marinating chicken pieces and life out a piece of chicken, letting the marinade run back into the bowl or ziplock bag
- Place on the aluminium foil and repeat with the remaining pieces of chicken
- Lay it out so they pieces don't touch each other
- Make sure there is no excess marinade on the chicken or in the baking sheet because otherwise,the high temperatures we are using to bake the tandoori chicken will burn it
- It took me 15 minutes to get the dark, burnt, and patchy look on the chicken legs and they were done perfectly
- You can baste (spread) some of the marinade over the chicken midway through baking and put it back in the oven, I didn't bother with this step
- Serve with lemon wedges, green chutney, and raw onion slices
How to make Tandoori Chicken in an Oven – Step by Step Pictures
Clean the chicken legs and make deep slits into the flesh part making sure your knife touches bone each time and it’s deep enough. This will ensure that the marinade will go deep into the cut areas. Leave the skin on the chicken pieces, this will ensure a crispy outside and juicy inside when the tandoori chicken is ready to serve
In a blender, blend the 3/4 cup yogurt, 1/4 cup cubed onion, 1 green chilli, 1 clove of garlic, a small piece of ginger, 1/2 tsp chilli powder, 1 tbsp lime juice, 1 tsp garam masala and salt to taste,until it’s a smooth paste
Add some red food colour to get that restaurant-style chicken tandoori looks. This is optional and doesn’t affect the taste.
Place the chicken pieces in a bowl or a ziplock bag and pour the marinade in
Using your fingers, turn the chicken pieces in the marinade until well coated. Refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight
When you are ready to bake the chicken, prepare the oven by pre-heating to 450F/230C. If your oven doesn’t have this setting, just turn it to the maximum heat setting. As your oven pre-heats, line a baking sheet with aluminium foil and grease with oil.
Take out your marinating chicken pieces and life out a piece of chicken, letting the marinade run back into the bowl or ziplock bag. Place on the aluminium foil and repeat with the remaining pieces of chicken
Lay it out so they pieces don’t touch each other. Make sure there is no excess marinade on the chicken or in the baking sheet because otherwise,the high temperatures we are using to bake the tandoori chicken will burn it (like you can see in the below picture).
It took me 15 minutes to get the dar, and patchy look on the chicken legs and they were done perfectly. You can baste (spread) some of the marinade over the chicken midway through baking and put it back in the oven, I didn’t bother with this step
Serve with lemon wedges, green chutney, and raw onion slices.
For tandoori chicken recipe in Hindi, Urdu, Malay, French, Spanish, Italian, Tamil, Telugu etc please use the Google translate button in the sidebar.
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I really enjoyed reading this article! I’d suggest serving this Tandoori Chicken with some warm, fluffy naan bread and a mint yogurt dip.