It has been a few days since I had chicken for dinner. Fortunately, my wife missed chicken as well (guess, who was the first to join “I Love Chicken” fan page?). When I came home from work, she was waiting for me with two cookbooks laying in front of her, but I could see clearly in her eyes, that decision has already been made on what we are going to have for dinner – a simple chicken tikka masala recipe!

To be fair, I have tried a few different chicken tikka masala recipes in the past and they were sooooo goooood! (I will need to write them down someday). So, I was willing to try another one! Mostly because, I could add another recipe into “chicken breast recipes” category.

Cheater’s Chicken Tikka Masala – Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts, skinned and boned, cut into 2.5 cm cubes (from the above picture you can see, that I’ve got whole chicken! Oh yes… I was feeling a little bit like Sweeney Todd and tried my best to cut the chicken up in pieces – it’s so much fun! I will need to write a separate post about it. Eventually, I used 2 chicken breasts and 2 thighs – skinned and boned, cut into 2.5 cm cubes).
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2.5 cm fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 4 tbsp natural yoghurt
• 1 onion, cut in half, and thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp tikka masala curry paste (I used Patak’s)
• salt and black pepper
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 50 ml water
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
• coriander leaves, to garnish

Cheater’s Chicken Tikka Masala – Recipe

1. Put the tomatoes, garlic, ginger and yoghurt into a blender or food processor and process until the mixture is smooth. Set aside. When my wife read the first step on the recipe, she couldn’t believe it… no proper chopping? Just processing? Are you kidding me? That’s cheating! That’s Cheater’s Chicken Tikka Masala!.
2. Heat the oil in heavy-based pan, add the onion and fry over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly. I just love the smell of frying onions… you start salivating while dreaming about succulent chicken, and yet, you are on the second step only.
3. Stir in the masala curry paste and fry for further 1 minute over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
4. Add the tomato mixture (from the first step) and chicken to the pan and mix together. Season with salt and pepper. Mix the floor and water together and stir into the pan taken off the heat. Return to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Cover and cook over gentle heat for further 15 minutes.
5. Sprinkle in the chopped coriander and server immediately garnished with coriander leaves.