Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

Makes: 6 servings

🍲 Slow Cooker Recipe

This is a combination of a few different recipes I’ve used before, adapted for a ‘throw everything in the slowcooker and walk away for 4 hours’ type of meal. You could brown the onion, garlic, and chicken beforehand if you want.

Ingredients

500 grams chicken (I used boneless thigh pieces)
2 onions, chopped
1 x 400 ml can of chopped tomatoes (and their juices)
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, shredded or finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh garlic, crushed or finely chopped
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (the sweet kind, not the brighter red spicy kind of paprika)
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon curry powder (this makes it quite mild, but vary this quantity to your preference)
1/8 teaspoon Kashmiri chili powder (this makes it quite mild, but vary this quantity to your preference)
1 tablespoon garam masala
2 tablespoons fresh grated coconut (I use frozen cubes of shredded coconut)
2 tablespoons dried shredded coconut
2 tablespoons gram flour/chickpea flour (to thicken the sauce, but you could also probably use plain flour. Cornflour apparently dulls the spices so should be avoided.)
1 x 400 ml can of coconut milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Directions

Place the onions at the bottom of your slowcooker. Add in the chicken. Sprinkle over the fresh ginger, fresh garlic, powdered ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, garlic powder, smoked paprika, cumin, curry powder, and chili powder.
Pour in the tomato paste, can of chopped tomatoes, and chicken stock. Stir gently to combine. Cover and cook on Low for 8 hours or on High for 4 hours. About 30 minutes before the end of cooking time, whisk the can of coconut milk with the 2 tablespoons of gram flour, and add to the slowcooker along with the fresh grated coconut, dried grated coconut, and garam masala. Stir gently, cover again and cook for the final 30 minutes until the sauce thickens up. (Apparently you can also leave the lid off for the last half hour to thicken the sauce, but I’ve never tried this.) Before serving, add in the lemon juice, stir and serve alongside rice.

My Notes

This turned out really well. I didn’t want to hunt for cardamon pods in the finished sauce later on, so I didn’t use any. This would be a good base sauce to make in bulk without the meat, and freeze for when we want to add it over paneer cheese or prawns, etc. Definitely making this one again, probably a double batch next time.