This tandoori marinade is loaded with big Indian flavours. If you can grill, you can make better tandoori chicken than you can buy.
I don’t know why it is but the tandoori chicken in restaurants in North America is just not good. Maybe it’s marinated too long. Maybe it’s overcooked. Maybe they use mass produced tandoori paste. For sure is nowhere as good as it could be.
Which is too bad because it’s one of the great chicken dishes of all time. I use tandoori marinade all over the place. Tandoori chicken – sure. But tandoori tacos. And chicken tikka. Shashlik. Or rotisserie up a whole tandoor chicken. Why not?
Think of this recipe as an alternative to store bought tandoori paste. It is tandoori paste when you think about it. Just homemade. Fresher. Tastier.
Grill or oven?
My favourite way to cook tandoori chicken is to grill over charcoal. That little hint of smoke just makes it magic for me. If I had a tandoor maybe that would be my favourite.
But if you can’t get to your grill the oven works too. Slather the chicken. Roast the chicken on a rack. Hit it with a blast of the broiler at the end to crisp it up a bit. Beautiful.
That works especially well for chicken tikka. Kebabs just work well in the oven for some reason. That’s what I do in the dead of winter to get my tandoori fix.
Tandoori marinade is better without yoghurt
I’m a bit of a heretic when it comes to tandoori marinade. I don’t like to include yoghurt. That goes against pretty much every tandoori recipe out there.
But there’s a reason. Yoghurt and other acidic marinades break down the proteins in the chicken. Think of ceviche. That is fish cooked with nothing but acid. No heat at all.
That pre-cooking effect turns chicken into mush. Terrible texture. Just not tasty. You can try to fix it by cooking it over crazy high temperature.
That helps some as long as you don’t overcook it. That’s what a tandoor oven does. Searingly high temperatures.
Or you can set yourself up for success from the start. Leave the yoghurt out of your tandoori marinade. Break with tradition. It’s not that scary. Honest.
Tips from a Bangalore tandoori restaurant
I came to this conclusion after eating at a tandoori kebab restaurant in Bangalore. Their chicken was moist, the flavours explosive. So good.
I thought about it for a while then asked “Do you use yoghurt in your tandoori paste?”. “No, we don’t”. Haven’t used yoghurt since. I add the lemon at the end. I don’t get mush and nor will you.
Don’t let the list of ingredients stop you
There’s a lot of ingredients in this marinade. The recipe works really well as written. But it won’t completely fall apart if you leave one out. Even two.
But each ingredient adds a little something. And the combination is what makes this recipe special. Complexity. This isn’t a one-dimensional tandoori marinade.
It might seem harder than it needs to be but all you are doing is mixing some stuff up in a bowl. Nothing more involved than that. Dump some stuff in a bowl and mix. Not so hard.
And it’s going to be better than you have been getting at your local Indian restaurant. Unless you live in India I guess. Then it will just be as good.
Try it to make really good chicken tikka, tandoori chicken or even tandoori tacos. Oven or grill or tandoor. Start with a great tandoori marinade and you’ll get great tandoori chicken.
tandoori marinade
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp cumin powder
- 1 Tbsp coriander powder
- 2 tsp hot curry powder
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 Tbsp dried fenugreek leaves aka kasoor methi
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp mint sauce
- 2 tsp mild kashmiri chili powder
- 1 Tbsp chopped coriander leaf/stem
- 1 Tbsp Patak's tandoori paste optional
- 1 Tbsp garlic ginger paste
- 3 Tbsp oil
- 4-6 Tbsp water to make a runny paste
- pinch red food colouring
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients except the water and the lemon juice.
- Add water, a bit at a time until you get a consistency like the picture.
- Marinate meat at least an hour and up to 12. Add the lemon juice just before cooking.
This a great recipe for use in my tandoor oven. I have tried this twice now. The first time I used skinless and boneless chicken thighs which were far better than chicken breast. One tip that I found was use less marinade than you are asked to as the spices can be over powering. Because of the tearing of the chicken during de-boning the shredded pieces of meat catch the tandoor flames so much better than breast meat. Highly recommended and good to find a marinade that doesn’t contain yoghurt as I found yoghurt makes the chicken too wet when it’s cooked. Wear gloves when rubbing the marinade onto the chicken. 🙂
I’m glad you like it and especially happy you don’t use yoghurt in your marinade!
Great advice on the gloves. If you are going for red chicken you have to plan on red fingers otherwise:-)
I used this in my batter mixture for Chicken Pakoras. They turned out brilliantly and the crispy batter flavour was to die for
Thanks
Sounds delicious!
Patak have stopped making the Tandoori Paste (now only do tandoori marinade which is much weaker in flavour). Can you recommend any other paste?
I hadn’t realized that as I still have some. It is an optional ingredient (although a good one). I would try any tandoori paste of a similar potency and texture. I’ll try to come up with a copycat recipe as well…
I found Patak’s Tandoori Paste yesterday in Save On Foods (Canada). I also saw it on Amazon (but crazy expensive there.)
I just posted a copycat recipe as well.
I like to think that I am a bit of a curry aficionado , this is THE BEST tandoori recipe I have come across. It works so well on a barbecue (BBQ). Great recipe, Thanks very much
Thanks and you are very welcome! I am always looking to try to improve it but I keep coming back…
GREAT recipe. I’ve had tandoori chicken a boatload of times at restaurants all across America, even tried my hand at a few versions on my own grill, but this one is hands down the best.
You can even use the marinated chicken to do most of the seasoning in a chicken tikka masala, it’s so fragrant.
One question though – why add the tandoori paste? Why not just add more of the other ingredients that are in the recipe to begin with? Pretty much everything in tandoori paste is already included here.
Glad you liked it. The tandoori paste adds another subtle layer and it does add a bit of colour as well.
We used Bengali king prawns, large 6/8 it was great done on small charcoal barbecue in the UK
Sounds lovely. Charcoal adds a lovely flavour.
Mint sauce is what you have with lamb, you can get it in any food shops
Just don’t confuse it with mint jelly. It is not the same thing.
Hello. Does this marinade freeze as I have made far too much.
I’m sorry. I’ve never tried. I imagine it would be OK. It will keep in the fridge for a week though so if you’re thinking of making something else with it I’d try that first.
Hi thank you your quick reply. I’ll make another shaslik with it in the next few days or can you recommend something else.
You could make tikka and then a chicken tikka masala or do tandoori chicken wings. Those are always a hit.
This recipe is indeed excellent. I’ve made it a few times now and it never fails. I often make a large batch, particularly if I am lighting the barbecue as that is the best place to cook them as the smoke adds extra flavour and it is easy to get a bit of charring which adds even more.
They also freeze very well, for adding into curries at a later date or just eaten as is.
I notice that some posts have queried the mint sauce. If you can’t get it ready made then it is very easy to make.
And better for being fresh. It is an essential condiment in the Uk to accompany roast lamb.
Chop fresh mint very finely, mix with malt vinegar ( but any vinegar will do) just enough to form a wet paste, then add just enough sugar to take the acid edge off a bit, but not too much as you need that slight acidity, which helps cut through the fattiness of the lamb. That’s it really. Keeps for years in a sealed jar.
Thanks for the detailed review and fresh mint sauce recipe!
This is always a winner! I often make it for parties and people can’t get enough.
Great to hear. Everybody always goes for the tandoori chicken:-)
A little nervous with amount of ingredients, however tastes amazing! And not difficult at all. Practicing for bbq season. Thanks
You are welcome. It is a long list of ingredients for sure but I think it’s worth it.
This marinade is the best I’ve ever tasted. Thank you for sharing.
Great to hear. Thank you.
Just discovered your recipe for garlic ginger paste and now the tandoori marinade is even better (hard to imagine I know!)
Every little bit adds to the final result!
Quite simply superb. THANK YOU!
I regularly cook chicken tikka & tandoori chicken, using a different but similar marinade recipe.
Most of the ingredients are the same. However, I don’t use the hot curry powder and the tandoori paste.
However, I use 1 tsp of sumac.
I will try your recipe with sumac and see how it goes.
Thanks for all your great recipes.
I’m also confused by the mint sauce, what is it? Mint jelly like you’d serve with roast lamb? That green Mint chutney, which seems interchangeable with Coriander chutney? Please, point me in the right direction.
This one confused me at first as well. It is not mint jelly and it is not mint chutney. It’s a liquid sauce with bits of mint. It’s a bit sweet. If you google images for mint sauce Colemans is one brand. Crosse and Blackwell is another.
I think it’s English originally. I can get it in grocery stores in Canada without difficulty. A bit of mint chutney would work as well. And worst case, just leave it out. There’s a lot of other flavours going on in this recipe…
My mum never bought mint sauce in a jar when I was growing up it was my job to chop mint from the garden whilst dinner was cooking. You just add malt vinegar and caster sugar to taste leave it to stand until dinner is ready. With a blender you could do this in seconds.
That’s a great tip. Thanks.
Mint sauce is usually found in condiment section of the supermarket in the same area as worcestershire sauce, A1 sauce, etc. The bottles are quite small so you have to watch for them.
Cant find mintsauce can I use mintleaves instemde? ?
I’ve never tried mint leaves but that could work. Maybe with a pinch of sugar as mint sauce is sweet. Or you could just leave it out. Not the end of the world…
Hi
What is hot curry powder and mint sauce?
Hot curry powder is any one of many pre-made spice blends. Lalah’s madras curry powder is an example. Mint sauce is a sweet mint mixture that is literally called “mint sauce” in North American and European groceries.
Hey, just wondering if the vinegar in the mint sauce is not a cause of concern ( pointing to the acid)?
It has not in my experience. Even if it were 50 percent vinegar (which it is not) you would be adding 1/2 tsp for a full batch.
My husband has requested tandooori chicken for Father’s Day. This sounds like the perfect recipe!
Were I to double the marinade it would keep okay in the fridge for a few weeks, correct?
I think you’ll like this recipe. It will most certainly keep OK in the fridge so long as you are not trying to re-use it.
This is the best marinade I’ve found so far. Delicious! The only change I made was to add a little mango powder for a bit of ‘zing’. Thank you
A bit of mango powder sounds like a wonderful addition to tandoori marinade. Thanks for the idea!
If you haven’t got mango powder you can tamarind paste and mix it with the water as a substitute.
Thanks for the tip!
Amazing n delicious …best recipe
Thank you so much for saying so!
Can I halve the ingredients if making just 6 chicken thighs?
Absolutely. Half. Double. Whatever you want. It’s a marinade so it scales perfectly.
It’s not authentic when you use curry powder, you need to make the curry powder or garam masalla, it is so much better, than the shop stale powders. Just try it.
Fresh is always better. I don’t think this recipe would be very good with the flavour profile in garam masala but if anyone wants to try it here’s my version – glebekitchen garam masala.