Tandoori Chicken Marinade Using Breast Meat

Tandoori Chicken Marinade For Skinless Breast

You can't beat this tandoori chicken marinade for flavor or for color either! It produces authentic tandoori chicken just like your local Indian restaurant.

When using this marinade try to get thin breasts because it’s important to cook them quickly over a hot grill. I use a ceramic kamado grill because you can get up to really high temperatures, in fact the kamado is an excellent alternative to a traditional tandoor oven.

The other piece of equipment that you’re going to need for this recipe is a food processor. There’s loads in this marinade, certainly enough for 8 breasts but don’t be afraid to marinade a few breasts extra and freeze them for a later cookout.

Yield:- 3 cups or 720ml

Preparation Time:- 15 minutes
Marinade Time:- overnight
Cooking Time:- 15 minutes

Total Time:- 1 day

Allergens:

It's a long list of ingredients but they are all natural so there shouldn't be any allergens present. Two things to watch out for:

If using bottled lemon juice then this will contain sulphites
So spice manufacturers add trace amounts of flour (gluten) to their spices to stop the spices getting lumpy over time

Ingredients:-

2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
Juice of ½ lemon
450 ml / ¾ pint natural yogurt
150 ml / ¼ pint white wine vinegar
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
5cm / 2inch piece of fresh ginger
4 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon red food coloring

Method:-

Chop the onion, garlic, ginger and throw them into the food processor, pour in the yogurt and vinegar and give it a good blitz. Add the remaining ingredients, give it another wizz and your tandoori chicken marinade is complete.

Pour the mix over the chicken making sure that everything is covered and then leave for a minimum of 8 hours (preferably overnight) in the refrigerator. Stir occasionally.

Bring the marinade out of the refrigerator at least a couple of hours before you want to cook so that the meat has time to come up to room temperature (this makes for a more even cooking process).

When ready to grill, remove the chicken from the marinade and scrape off any excess yogurt. The yogurt will act as a heat shield and prevent the outside of the chicken from crisping up and this is something that you want to avoid. If you leave the yogurt on, you just end up with a soggy exterior to the chicken which neither looks good nor is it a pleasant texture to eat.

Grilling will take about 15 minutes depending on the thickness of the chicken breasts.