Your quest for this Indo-Chinese style chicken appetiser ends here with this semi dry chilli chicken. This dish is widely available across the length and breadth of India, however real trick is to make it as you find finest restaurants. Normally, you will find this chilli chicken made as boneless, however if you are like my partner, Kapil, you can have it with bone too. I hope you will find this Indian style chilli chicken recipe giving the same taste as you find in your local favourite restaurant.
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What is Chilli Chicken
As the name suggests, it has to do something with Chicken and chillies. This is an Indo-Chinese chicken based appetiser and is one the most common dish you will find in an Indo-Chinese restaurant. Sometimes you can find this chicken dish in hakka chinese restaurant too. This chilli chicken is somewhat sweet, sour and spicy, all at the same time.
Taste of chilli chicken in a hakka restaurant will be little different from that you will find in Indian restaurant. Hakka Chinese has focus on core chicken and soy sauce, less on adding chillies, on the other hand, Indian version is more tangy and spicy.
Is chilli chicken very hot?
Actually not! But lot depends on the way you make it. Some people love their spice levels to be rocket high, in which case it can be super hot, though normally the spice level is kept to moderate. I will recommend that you adjust the spice levels based on your personal preference. Too much spice can lead to upset stomach.
I would up the spice level if Kapil is eating this, however if my daughter, Aadya, is eating, I go slow on spice level.
Ingredients for chilli chicken
Making of chilli chicken in Indian style is two step process, marination and then cooking. The list of ingredients are as follows
- Chicken – You can’t have chilli chicken without chicken, can you? You need small diced chicken pieces, for boneless, go with chicken breast.
- Sauces – You need chilli sauce and soy souce. The unique mixture of these sauces gives mouthwatering taste.
- Corn flour and All purpose flour – You need small portions of these flours to give coating the chicken in the marination. You will need corn flour in the gravy too to thicken the gravy. This chilli chicken is crispy on the outer layer, this layer is formed by using the flour.
- Black pepper powder and green chillies – These adds to the spice and heat of the chicken chilli. Adjust these to your tastebuds.
- Onion and Garlic – These are added in the gravy of this Indian chicken chilli recipe.
- Spring Onion and Capsicum– You will need small portion of spring onion to add to the taste and aesthetics of this recipe.
- Tomato Ketchup – To balance the heat, you need sweet tomato ketchup.
- Oil – It is used in the frying.
Method of making Indian style chicken chilli
- First of all wash and drain chicken pieces thoroughly. Now in a mixing bowl, add chicken with 1 teaspoon of chilli sauce, 1 teaspoon of soya sauce, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper powder each. Mix it well and keep aside for 1 hour.
- Now, sprinkle corn flour, all purpose flour on it and mix well.
- Now, heat oil in a pan and shallow fry chicken till its well cooked, subsequently take it out and drain on a kitchen towel.
- In an another pan, take 2 spoons oil from the same oil which we used to fry the chicken pieces. Add garlic and sauté for about a minute, then add onions, capsicum, spring onions, and green chilies and sauté for 2-3 minutes.
- Now add remaining soya sauce, chilli sauce and ketchup. Add the fried chicken and mix well. Add remaining salt and pepper powder too. In case it looks too dry, sprinkle little water. Sauté on high flame for 2 to 3 minutes and switch off the flame. Your chicken chilli is ready.
Pro Tips for best chicken chilli
- Use fresh chicken where possible, and if using frozen chicken, thaw the chicken well.
- Avoid using MSG / ajinomotto. My recipe avoids using it for health reasons. Likewise, some people use food color, use only organic color if required, my recipe here does not need any food coloring.
- Restaurant style normally has deep fried chicken, however for healthier version, you can shallow fry (still make sure that chicken is cooked), or air fry or grill the chicken pieces.
- To get good color, you can add paprika powder or kashmiri chilli powder. These are less spicier versions of chilli and offer nice red hues to chicken.
- Make sure that the chicken is marinated well in the marination so that the taste goes well inside the chicken.
- Coat the chicken well in the flour mix and then a good fry will give nice crispy chicken.
- Stir fry the vegetables on high heat for few minutes only, this will retain the crunchiness of vegetables.
- I have kept water level to minimum for a drier version. You can add more water and sauces to increase gravy quantity, however remember to top more veggies quantity or it may get too runny.
This Chilli Chicken Is
- A great chicken based starter, and with right spice levels can set the mood of the party
- Though a starter, however no one refuse if you slide this along side mains. Too good to resist!
- Dry version and truly how you will find in a good Indo-Chienese restaurant.
- Not all difficult to make and does not require any special equipment to make it.
Other versions
- Vegetarian – Vegetarian friends of mine will love to try chilli paneer, same great taste and vegetarian too.
- Vegan – If you are vegan, you can try out mushroom chilli or replace paneer with tofu in chilli paneer.
Storage and serving suggestion
I will recommend to make this fresh all the time. You can store it in fridge for a day, however there is risk that chicken pieces can get chewy. To re-heat, heat on medium heat for few minutes.
Serve this hot from the pan, along side some drink, such as blue lagoon mocktail.
Left over chilli chicken?
You can put this chicken in a wrap (as long as chicken was boneless) and make chilli chicken wrap or sauté it with steamed rice to give taste of chicken fried rice.
Recipe Card
Chilli Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
For Marination
- 300 Grams Boneless Chicken
- 2 Teaspoon Chilli Souce
- 2 Teaspoon Soy souce
- 1 Teaspoon Black pepper powder
- 2 Tablespoon Corn Flour
- 2 Tablespoon All Purpose Flour/ Maida
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
For Gravy
- 1 Tablespoon Corn Flour
- 1 Medium Size Onion Diced Into Cubes
- 2 Teaspoon Garlic Chopped
- 1/3 Cup Bell Pepper Diced Into Cubes
- 2 Green chillies Slit & Deseeded
- 1 Bunch Spring Onion Chopped
- 1 Tablespoon Tomato Ketchup
- Oil For Deep Frying
Instructions
- First of all wash and drain chicken pieces thoroughly. Now in a mixing bowl, add chicken with 1 teaspoon of chilli sauce, 1 teaspoon of soya sauce, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper powder each. Mix it well and keep aside for 1 hour.
- Now, sprinkle corn flour, all purpose flour on it and mix well.
- Heat oil in a pan and shallow fry until chicken is well cooked.
- Take them out and drain on a kitchen towel.
- In an another pan, take 2 spoons oil from the same oil which we used to fry the chicken pieces. Add garlic and saute for about a minute.
- Add onions, capsicum, spring onions, and green chilies and sauté for 2-3 minutes.
- Add remaining soya sauce, Chilli sauce and ketchup. Add the fried chicken and mix well. Add remaining salt and pepper powder too. In case it looks too dry, sprinkle little water. Saute on high flame for 2 to 3 minutes. Switch off the flame.
- Serve hot chilli chicken hot with fried rice or noodles.
Notes
- You can skip using tomato ketchup if you doesn’t like little sweet taste.
- You may use paneer, tofu or other veg variants in case you prefer veg meal.
- Exercise care to not cook on high heat and long duration, your chicken may become chewie.