Good Day All! It’s time for a cookery related blog post today. If you follow me on social media you will have seen me share images of this one already, it’s a great alternative to a take away, and it costs a fraction of the price of one too! It’s a simple recipe, easy to make and complete in just a few minutes. Of course I am making mine dairy free because of my sons allergies, I have worked on this recipe for months. You can use alternatives and I will outline those in my recipe below if you want to alter it.

So why am I sharing this particular recipe? Well, I really miss a proper Chicken Tikka, and I thought with a little experimenting I could make a recipe I would really enjoy. Coconut is often used in curry sauce anyway, so by using coconut yoghurt as part of the base it eliminates the dairy aspect and allows me to play with the spices. This recipe I have made is great, although proper Tikka has nuts and dairy in, usually Almonds, and I can’t have either because of my son. It is also more red in colour, so I am considering adding some Paprika next time! So I will be continually trying to better this recipe and cooking in every aspect of my life, but this is the best I have so far. If I make an awesome adjustment I will edit this post! But for now my Curry is both Tasty and a little spicy too!

This is my Dairy Free Chicken Tikka Style Curry Recipe

Author: Severn Sabrina
Prep Time: 20 Minutes
Cook Time: 40 Minutes
Total Time: 60 Minutes
Serves: 2 for Curry & Rice OR 4 (if you add sides)
Allergens: This Recipe is Dairy Free unless you change the Yoghurt

You Will Need

A Teaspoon
A Wooden Spoon
A Bowl for the Marinade
A Medium Saucepan
A Knife for Chopping
A Flat Oven Tray
Scissors for Cutting the Chicken

INGREDIENTS

Pilau Rice (it compliments the flavours of my sauce but you can have plain white rice if you would prefer) I sometimes just use a microwave rice packet for convenience.
300g Chicken or for a Vegetarian Alternative use Quorn Chunks
White Onion – 2 Onions chopped two different ways, large chunks and diced
2 Pots of Coconut Yoghurt (average size from a usual pack of 4 pots)

Optional Extras (to increase it for the amount people you’re serving)
1 Pepper diced into bite sized cubes and fried off with the onions
1/2 Tin of Chopped Tomatoes (if you prefer a more tomato based curry with less spice)
Poppadoms and Chutneys
Naan Bread (Shop bought usually contains Dairy)
Chips

For the Marinade
1 Pot of Coconut Yoghurt
1 Teaspoon of Tikka Curry Powder (or something similar)

For the Sauce
6 Teaspoons Tomato Puree
1 Small Pots of Coconut Yoghurt (You can use regular yoghurt if not doing DF)
2 Tspn Tikka Curry Powder OR 1 Tspn of Garam Massala + 1 Tspn Cumin
Salt and Pepper to taste

(If you want to make a more complex curry sauce look through my blog for my other recipes).

METHOD

1. Start by chopping your onions and frying it off in a saucepan with a little oil. You want the onions to be softened but not caramelised. Once they are cooked you can start to build the sauce up. Start by using a teaspoon to measure out the other sauce ingredients and add them into the onions. Including the spices, yoghurt and tomato puree. Stir gently to combine. Leave this on a low heat stirring it frequently. Your sauce should resemble mine in the image below.

2. Then take your chicken, cut it bite size pieces, try and get them all roughly the same size so they cook evenly. You want to marinade the raw chicken for as long as possible before cooking it, so I would often do this as a first step and then go ahead to chopping and cooking. But it all works the same way and it will be just as soft and tender but slightly less flavoursome than if you marinaded it for a few hours! So if you’re planning to do this recipe and have some time on your hands, marinade the chicken in the fridge for a couple of hours before putting it in the oven. (With a toddler in tow I often just get a short window to cook!) When you do get to this stage you should lay the chicken pieces out evenly on a tray and oven them for around 20 minutes at 180’c. They should look baked and coated, cooked through and still tender. See my images below as a guide.

3. For the next step you want to remove the cooked chicken pieces from the oven tray gently, and set them down in the sauce, try not to lose much of their tasty marinade coating! This will add extra flavour to your sauce. Stir all of the chicken up with the sauce and then leave it on a low heat for around twenty minutes.

4. Serve the curry as soon as your rice is cooked and hot, half and half works well, you could even accompany it with some poppadoms and chutneys, a naan bread to tear and share or even do half rice and half chips while the oven is hot – if you’re that way inclined! 😉
There should be plenty of that tasty sauce for dipping things in whatever way you decide to serve it!

Thank you very much for reading this post today, if you do try my recipe let me know how you got on. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment, I’m more than happy to answer them.

Have a lovely evening,

✩ Sabrina ✩