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Restaurant-Style Chicken Tikka Masala
Serves 1 Prep 5 min Cook 12 min Total 17 min Type Meal Origin Indian

Restaurant-Style Chicken Tikka Masala

The UK curry-house signature: pre-marinated chicken tikka in a creamy, mildly-spiced tomato sauce thickened with coconut and almond powders, sweetened with jaggery, and finished with single cream.

Serves 1 Prep 5 minutes (assumes chicken tikka is already prepared) Cook 12 minutes Units Rate

Overview

Chicken tikka masala is — depending on which origin story you believe — either Glasgow's mid-1970s answer to British diners demanding gravy on their dry tandoori chicken, or a long-standing Punjabi dish that simply migrated. Either way, it became Britain's de facto national curry and the benchmark mild-creamy dish on every BIR menu in the country.

The build is more layered than most BIR curries. Five tablespoons of tomato paste do most of the colour work; tandoori masala goes in after the tomato (an unusual late position) so it carries the chicken-tikka flavour profile into the sauce; coconut and almond powders both go in with the gravy to thicken and sweeten the body; jaggery adds the unmistakable BIR sweetness; single cream finishes on low heat to round the edges without splitting. The result is the familiar bright orange-red sauce that's mildly spiced, distinctly sweet, and rich enough to coat each piece of tikka without becoming a korma.

The chicken should genuinely be tikka — pre-marinated and char-grilled — for this to read as the proper dish rather than a creamy chicken curry. Pre-Cooked Chicken substitutes acceptably but loses the smoky chargrill note that the tomato base is built to amplify.

Ingredients

Tempering

  • 3 tbsp oil or butter ghee (45 ml)
  • 10 cm cassia bark
  • 1.5 tsp ginger-garlic paste

Spice

Tomato Base

  • 5 tbsp tomato paste (double-concentrated puree diluted 1:3, blended tinned plum tomatoes, or passata — see Notes)
  • 200 g pre-cooked chicken tikka (or Pre-Cooked Chicken, Pre-Cooked Lamb, prawns)
  • 1.5 tsp lemon juice

Sauce

  • 330 ml+ Curry Base Gravy, heated through
  • 1.5 tbsp Tandoori Masala (see Notes)
  • 3 tbsp coconut powder or flour
  • 1.5 tbsp ground almonds (almond powder)
  • a pinch of red food colour (optional, cosmetic)
  • 2 tbsp jaggery or brown sugar

Finish

  • 75 ml single cream, plus extra for garnish
  • 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander leaves
  • 1 to 2 tsp butter ghee (optional, for shine)
  • 1 tbsp flaked almonds, toasted (optional)

Method

Stage 1 - Toast the almonds

  1. If using the flaked almonds, set a dry frying pan on medium heat.
  2. Toast the almonds for 1 to 2 minutes, shaking the pan, until lightly browned. Don't wander — they go from golden to burnt fast.
  3. Tip out onto a plate and set aside.

Stage 2 - Temper

  1. Return the same pan to medium-high heat and add the oil or ghee.
  2. Drop in the cassia bark. Fry for 30 to 40 seconds, stirring frequently, to infuse the oil.
  3. Add the ginger-garlic paste. Stir until it starts to brown slightly and the sizzling sound drops.

Stage 3 - Bloom the spices

  1. Add the mix powder, garam masala, and salt.
  2. Fry for 20 to 30 seconds, stirring diligently.
  3. Splash in a little base gravy if the powdered spices start sticking — they need a touch of liquid to cook through properly.

Stage 4 - Tomato base and chicken

  1. Turn the heat up. Add the tomato paste.
  2. Stir cautiously until the oil separates and small craters appear around the edges of the pan.
  3. Add the chicken tikka and the lemon juice. Mix thoroughly so every piece is coated in the masala.

Stage 5 - Build the sauce

  1. Pour in 150 ml of base gravy along with the tandoori masala, coconut powder, almond powder, and the optional red food colour.
  2. Stir together, then leave to cook for 1 to 1.5 minutes, until the sauce has reduced slightly.
  3. Add another 150 ml of base gravy and the jaggery (or brown sugar).
  4. Stir and scrape the base and sides of the pan once, then leave to cook on high heat for 3 to 4 minutes.
  5. The coconut and almond powders will soak up a lot of the sauce as they hydrate. Add a splash more base gravy if the sauce tightens past where you want it. Avoid stirring or scraping unless the curry is about to burn.

Stage 6 - Cream finish

  1. About 30 seconds before the end of cooking, drop the heat to low.
  2. Stir in the single cream and the chopped coriander leaves.
  3. Taste and adjust: a touch more salt for savouriness, more jaggery for sweetness, more cream for body, a squeeze more lemon for sharpness.
  4. Optionally stir in the butter ghee at the very end for shine and richness.

Stage 7 - Plate

  1. Fish out the cassia bark.
  2. Plate up. Drizzle a little extra cream over the top, scatter the chopped coriander, and finish with the toasted flaked almonds if you have them.

Notes

  • The tandoori masala goes in with the gravy, not with the dry spices in Stage 3. That's unusual for a BIR build but it's deliberate. The smoky-chargrill profile of the tandoori masala wants to come through in the finished sauce, not get cooked out early.
  • Brands of tandoori masala vary wildly in salt content, and some are aggressively salted. Do taste a small amount of yours first and dial the added salt down if needed.
  • "Tomato paste" here means something medium-bodied: double-concentrated tomato puree mixed with 3 parts water, blended tinned plum tomatoes, or passata. Please don't substitute neat puree directly. It'll be too dense and the sauce won't reduce properly.
  • The coconut and almond powders both work to thicken and sweeten, but they aren't interchangeable. Coconut powder gives you a slightly nutty, faintly tropical character; ground almonds give body and rounded sweetness. Use both for the proper dish.
  • The cream goes in on low heat to stop it splitting. Whole-milk single cream works best here; double cream pushes the dish into proper korma territory.
  • A "tikka" is the protein cooked tandoor-style on skewers before it goes into the masala. If you don't have access to pre-cooked tikka, you can absolutely make your own: marinate chicken pieces in yoghurt, tandoori masala, ginger-garlic paste, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt for at least 2 hours, then grill, broil, or pan-sear hard before adding to the sauce.
  • And the usual: all spoon measurements are level. 1 tsp = 5 ml, 1 tbsp = 15 ml.

Serving

Pair with Restaurant-Style Special Fried Rice, plain basmati, or a peshwari naan — the coconut-almond stuffing of a peshwari plays particularly well with the dish's own coconut-almond base. A side of plain raita and a wedge of lemon round the plate.

Storage

Keeps 2 to 3 days in the fridge in a sealed container. The cream-based sauce thickens noticeably overnight as the coconut and almond powders absorb more liquid. Reheat gently in a pan with a splash of water or extra cream rather than the microwave, which can split the dairy.

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