Go Back
Print Recipe

Fearless Chicken Tikka Marsala

Servings: 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 Tbsp Fat Butter, coconut oil, olive oil, canola, ghee… literally anything works in any combo, but my personal favorite is butter and olive oil together.)
  • ⅓ cup Aromatics I like equal parts garlic and ginger, along with half a finely minced jalapeno.
  • ¼ cup. Indian spices I’ll talk more about this further down, but a good start is 1 tbsp. cumin, 1 tbsp. ground coriander, and 2 tbsp. store-bought garam masala. 4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup.
  • 2-4 Tbsp Tomato Paste
  • 6-8 Boneless, skinless chicken thighs Diced into bite-sized chunks.
  • 4 15-oz cans Tomatoes I usually do one can diced and three cans of crushed or non-seasoned sauce. If you like your Fearless Chicken Tikka Marsala more chunky use all diced or even skip out on one can to have a higher chicken-to-sauce ratio.
  • 1 Generous Dollop something creamy Coconut cream, coconut milk, heavy cream… anything fatty and creamy is perfect. I usually scrape the cream off the top of a can of coconut milk and discard the remaining coconut water. Adding the water thins the CTM too much.
  • rice My husband is Japanese so we’re rice snobs. We have a Japanese rice cooker (seriously, no English buttons) and use Kokoho Rose premium rice.
  • cilantro The perfect topping.

Instructions

  • Gather your ingredients first, including chopping garlic, dicing chicken, and opening cans. Have everything ready next to your stove because this puppy moves quickly.
  • Grab something to cook this in. Here’s the order from best to worst: a shallow Dutch oven or braiser, a regular Dutch oven, a deep skillet way bigger than your face, a regular soup pot. I’ll explain why in Cheats and Preferences.
  • Put the pot on the stove over medium-high heat, and add the fat. Let it melt and start to bubble the tiniest bit.
  • Add the aromatics and stir. Stir for no more than ten Mississippi’s before moving on. Tiny garlic burns big.
  • Dump in the spices and stir for another 5-10 seconds. If for some reason, your pan is too dry, add more oil. The spices need to almost fry. It’s a delight. Also don’t stop stirring.
  • Stir in the tomato paste for another few seconds. At this point, you’ve been stirring for less than a minute, and you won’t believe the magical smells coming from so little effort. Don’t be alarmed that this looks like a paste; it’s supposed to - a flavor bomb paste.
  • Add the diced chicken (that you already generously seasoned with salt), and stir it into the flavor bomb. The chicken will get coated and pick up a little extra flavor from direct contact with the pan. In this case, keep stirring the chicken until fully coated. We leave chicken alone when we’re sautéing it, but this situation is different. Stir so the flavor bomb doesn’t burn.
  • Dump in the canned tomatoes and stir well so that the flavor bomb becomes friends with the entire dish. Add several healthy pinches of salt, the “something creamy,” and let it simmer for twenty minutes, stirring once or twice throughout. If it’s bubbling aggressively enough to pop on your stove, turn the heat down. You need to still see bubbles but not crazy ones. Feel free to put a lid over half the pot, especially if you’re using a Dutch oven. A gentle simmer will keep your chicken from getting tough, too.
  • Taste it. If it doesn’t sing and make you want to pay me money, it needs more salt. You should want to pay me money.
  • Serve over rice, and top with cilantro.