Nearly restaurant style chicken saag is as close as you can get to full blown restaurant cooking as you can get. Unless you go all in. It has the texture. It has the flavours. And it’s a bit healthier. Added bonus.
Make every curry a great one
The internet is full of recipes written by people that have never had Indian food. Recipes that tell you adding a bit of curry powder to some chicken is a curry. I started researching this after trying one or two of them just to see what would come out the other side. Was not pretty…
I’m not being nice here. That’s true. I’m sorry. I really hope that doesn’t stop you from reading on. But seriously. Ask yourself – Is today the day I want to make bad fake Indian food?
Full blown restaurant Indian is a bit complicated but totally achievable if you plan ahead. Homestyle Indian is just wonderful, magical stuff. But it takes time.
In between – I give you nearly Indian restaurant style chicken saag. Fast enough to make on a whim. And close to what you get in restaurants. Really close, in fact. Read all about it in this nearly Indian restaurant cooking primer.
Chicken saag starts with onions
The key is the onions. That’s a big part of Indian cooking. Homestyle cooking relies on deeply browning the onions. Think onion soup. Like 30 minutes of browning.
Restaurant style replaces that by cooking huge amounts of onions in what they call the curry base. Do it once in volume and then crank out curries to order. If you are interested, read all about Indian restaurant cooking techniques.
What makes this chicken saag work is still the onions. No getting around that. But it swaps out 30 minutes of careful browning with 10 minutes in the microwave. Crazy sounding but it works.
I got the idea from a Chef’s Steps onion puree. They use it replace cream in recipes. I use it to replace curry base. That’s the secret. The gee whiz. The secret to nearly restaurant chicken saag. Or any other nearly restaurant style curry.
Nearly restaurant style curry is a new way to cook
As far as I can tell, this is a first in Indian cooking. I’m probably wrong about that but I can’t find anything like this anywhere. And I looked. A lot.
Let me know if you’ve seen this somewhere else please. Don’t mean to claim honours here if it’s been done anywhere.
The technique here borrows heavily from Indian restaurant technique. That’s why it works. Some tweaks of course. But that’s breaking new ground… Nearly restaurant ain’t bad. Pretty good even. Try it and let me know what you think…
Looking for other nearly restaurant style curries?
nearly restaurant style chicken saag
Ingredients
The onion paste
- 2 cups onions – coarsely chopped
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 cup water
chicken saag
- 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into 3 pieces per thigh.
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 2 tsp coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1-2 tsp mild kashmiri chili powder
- 1 1/2 tsp kasoor methi – dried fenugreek leaves
- 1 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp kosher salt – use a bit less if you are using table salt
- 2 tbsp garlic ginger paste
- 1 tbsp tomato paste diluted to the consistency of tomato sauce
- 4 oz frozen spinach (frozen weight) thawed and drained
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
Instructions
The onion paste
- Place the onions in a microwave safe dish and cover loosely. Microwave at 70 percent until the onions are soft and translucent. This takes 10 minutes in my 1100 watt microwave. I can’t predict how long it will take in yours…
- Remove the onions from the microwave. Be careful. They will be hot. Let them cool slightly. Place the onions, 2 tbsp vegetable oil and 3/4 cup of warm water in a blender and puree until smooth. Set aside.
chicken saag
- In a small bowl, combine the cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, Kashmiri chili powder, kasoor methi and salt. This is your spice mix.
- Heat 3 tbsp vegetable oil in a pot over medium heat until it shimmers.
- Add the garlic ginger paste and cook until it stops spluttering.
- Turn the heat to medium low. Add the spice mix and stir continuously until it starts to smell really good – around 30-40 seconds. Watch it carefully. If you burn the spices at this point you have to start over.
- Add the diluted tomato paste and stir to combine. Turn the heat up to medium. Cook for 1 minute.
- Add the onion paste and turn the heat up to medium high. Cook, stirring occasionally for 3-4 minutes. Don’t worry if it seems a bit dry. The chicken will release juices as it cooks and you should be left with a nice amount of sauce.
- Turn the heat down to medium low. Add the chicken and stir. Cover and simmer until the chicken is done. It’s done when you measure the internal temperature and it says 170F, about 12-15 minutes. There’s no other way to really tell when chicken is cooked. Get an instant read thermometer if you haven’t already bought one. Just do it! That’s what the pros do.
- Add the thawed spinach and stir to distribute it. If the curry is a bit thick add a bit of water or chicken stock and stir. Let the chicken saag simmer another minute or so. Taste for salt and adjust as needed.
Nutrition
This is an incredible dish. Easy to make, and bursting with flavour. My wife said it was restaurant quality without knowing that’s how it’s described. Thanks so much, I’ll be working your way through all your amazing Indian recipes.
I am delighted that you and your wife enjoyed it and I hope you find many more recipes to try!
Can you use a hand blender pls?
Sorry – I missed this one.Do you have an attachment to make it work like a blender or do you just have the stick? It will be pretty hard chasing around the bits in a bowl with just the stick. With enough determination it would probably work. I have never tried it this way so I really have no idea I am afraid.
Hi can you use small chunks of chicken breast, what difference using ghee instead of veg oil …. you say cup but I only have mugs? And is it correct that onions don’t need to be brown?
You can use white meat of course. You need to be careful not to overcook it as it is less forgiving. I find ghee to be rich for recipes like this and the flavour of the spices gets blunted. I developed this recipe using cups. I have no idea how big your mugs are but a cup is 237ml. The onions fry in the oil but you are correct it’s not browning like regular traditional curries. The Maillard reaction happens though – so the flavours are there.
Great Recipe. My wife said its the best curry we have ever made. I have tweaked the recipe since to make it more WW friendly, still a great curry, and will be one of our regulars.
Absolutely delighted to hear that. And good to know it can be lightened a bit and still hold its own. Thank you for sharing that tip!
i am so impressed and happy with this recipe! this is restaurant quality without a doubt, and the recipe is easy to follow. i used fresh spinach, but we cooked then drained it before adding to the curry. it turned out marvelously! i plan to add more spinach next time. this is my favorite indian dish when i go out, so i’m excited to have found this addition to my weekly menu. thank you so much!!
You are very welcome! So glad you liked it. Fresh spinach sounds so good. Great to hear you can make your favourite at home now!
After reading and failing to make a base I tried this… it’s my favourite and I’m very specific about how it should be. This was amazing, the texture was absolutely spot on. I made my with tikka and added chillis and it was identical to my favourite restaurant. The microwaved onions are a revelation ?
Super glad to hear that. The nearly restaurant style doesn’t get the love of the flashier restaurant or hotel styles but it really does work. And it’s so easy…
I made this and added small cubed potatoes 5 minutes before adding the chicken. The potatoes soak up a lot of moisture and release starch so I added extra water as it was cooking. The result was so amazing! Thank you so much for this recipe, I’ll definitely be making it again!
Potatoes are a great addition. Glad you liked it!
Made this tonight & I must say you are right. It was absolutely delicious & tasted like it could of been from a restaurant. It was actually nicer than the last saag I remember ordering.
Only thing is I could not find Fenugreek anywhere so left it out & added 1/2 tsp curry powder
We also found it a teensy hot so added 1/4 cup of coconut cream.
Was so yummy!
Great to hear you enjoyed it and were able to tweak it to your taste. Do keep trying to find kasoor methi (fenugreek leaves). It’s amazing what a difference that ingredient makes. It comes in a yellow cardboard box around here. Often it’s not with the other spices in the Indian shops around here so you do have to look around the store a bit.
Okay- you are an extraordinary cook and hilarious! I made your saag last night and my family was literally sucking it off of their forks. I did add cream, because it was dry (my fault, as I just shredded chicken thighs I’d already cooked) Literally- we are obsessed with your website and can’t wait to cook something else! Thanks for doing all the hard work and making me look great in the kitchen!
Nice to hear you get my sense of humour. Not everyone does:-). I hope you find lots of recipes your family likes as much!
Absolutely the best recipe for Chicken Saag out there. And easy.
Thanks for saying so!
My fave recipe is saag. My local Indian does it really well. I tried this, and it came really close. Thanks.
Glad you liked it. If you want to go full on restaurant style there are lots of recipes on glebekitchen.
Love this curry. One of the best I’ve tasted.
Busy working my way through a lot of the recipes as we all love a great curry.
One request – I’m looking for a recipe for Chicken Methi.If you can add this to your Indian recipes I’d be very grateful.
I had this at an Indian Streatery restaurant and nothing I’ve found is as good as that meal was.
Glad you like it! I have thinking about doing a chicken methi for a while. I don’t know that I’ll be able to top your restaurant experience but I will try!
With our favourite Indian restaurant closed I had a longing for my favourite dish. After searching and finding this recipe my daughter and I made it together. It was delicious! Smooth, creamy and full of flavour. Thank you so much for sharing and making lockdown in Ireland a bit more bearable ?
I’m glad you liked it. Hope you try a few more.
Want to give this a go over the weekend – is the 4oz spinach the frozen or defrosted weight?
Frozen weight. Good catch. Thanks. I have clarified the recipe.
More haste less speed! Thanks ?
We love Indian food and this is wonderful…I also cook it with green peas and mushrooms or potatoes…it works with these other vegetables..but spinach is our go to!
Thanks
Sue
Great to hear. And awesome that you are making it your own!
I’ve just made this. Absolutely wonderful. I put 2 birds eye chillies in the onion base. Used frozen spinach. Fantastic recipe. Thank you. Quick and easy. Love it. The microwave onions are a game changer.
I am pretty pleased with the microwaved onion trick. Don’t know why nobody has thought it up before but it really works. Glad you liked it!
This is realy realy realy good! 🙂
Done it a few times now and it is really close to restaurant taste!
Some input:
All Indian restaurants I´ve had Saag Chicken in use way more spinach than in this recipe making the dish greener. I would recommend at least three times as much spinage.
The cashmiri chili isn´t very hot (and indian food is often pretty hot..). To get heat add 1 finely chopped birds eyes chili (Thai) together with the garlic ginger paste. That will add nice heat but not overpower, my children 12 and 14 both thought it was perfectly fine.
Be sure to really cook the Onions in the microwave! I missed that a bit the first time and then you miss out on some of the sweetness of the onions.
Thanks Romain for your great recipes!
You are very welcome! I spice to medium spicy on glebe kitchen because not everyone likes hot but sometimes I like to kick it up as well.
I wanted to make a Chicken Saag today, and when I went to my go-to recipe, I found it was one that used a base gravy, and I could not be bothered making a batch up. Cue a google search and this recipe came up. Top notch, this is definitely a keeper. Thanks very much
Glad you found me and very happy hear it was a success!