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Home » Baked and Roasted Chicken » Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken

Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken

Published: Mar 8, 2016 · Modified: Aug 16, 2020 by Cooking Chat · This post may contain affiliate links

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This Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken is so moist and flavorful, and a breeze to make for a tasty weeknight supper! Click here to jump down to the recipe or read on for more details, including the wine pairings we tried and a recipe variation with chicken thighs. Originally posted on 2/2/2015, updated with wine pairings and recipe variations 2/8/2016.
Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken recipe

We love Indian food here! And now our 10 year old is warming up to the Indian flavors. For awhile, I was deterred from making Indian food often, thinking it was a long and difficult process to make it. Well, recipes like this Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken will have me making more Indian food at home!

Tandoori chicken is typically marinated for a length period of time, then cooked in a tandoor oven. But thin chicken breast filets could get some pretty good flavor with a quick marinade in a yogurt spice blend. With the short marinating time, the yogurt spice blend is bit of a cross between a sauce and marinade in this Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken.  Rather than being absorbed into the chicken, some of the tasty yogurt spice mixture surrounds the chicken for a moist and tasty flavor.

Traditional tandoori chicken is more of a reddish color, with the red either coming from cayenne pepper in spicier version, or turmeric and/or food coloring giving it the color in milder versions, as this Wikipedia article explains.

Our Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken is on the mild side, but flavorful thanks to some garlic, garam masala and curry powder. Enough flavor for the grownups to enjoy while mild enough to have our son gobble his up, too! The chicken comes out very moist here, too, always a plus. Dried out chicken is banned in our house!

Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken recipe for moist, flavorful Indian spiced chicken. Easy to make for a weeknight dinner!

You definitely want to serve the Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken with some basmati rice. We also had some store-bought samosas and a lentil dish that I discussed in this post.  I definitely recommend rounding out your meal with another Indian dish like those lentils or perhaps this Dairy-Free Cucumber Raita.

Wine Pairings for Tandoori Chicken

When I first made the Baked Tandoori Chicken, we served it with an Italian red wine, described in more detail in this Italian Wine for an Indian Feast post. I would suspect it would also go well with Pinot Noir, as that worked well when we made Grilled Tandoori Chicken last summer. The wine pairing notes for that one are posted here.

Update: We tried out the idea that Pinot Noir would pair well with our Baked Tandoori Chicken the other night, and were pleased with the results! The 2016 Domaine Parize Givry Vieilles Vignes ($22, 13% ABV) is light, nuanced red Burgundy that is very high quality for the price. I did like the way it paired with the tandoori chicken. The chicken being moderately spicy and the Burgundy have fairly low alcohol content helped to make it work.

Balletto Rose of Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley is a delicious wine, and pairs nicely with Baked Tandoori Chicken.

Speaking of pinot, I recently had a chance to try the Baked Tandoori Chicken with a rosé wine I’d been sent to sample. The 2014 Balletto Rosé of Pinot Noir is salmon pink in the glass, with scent of spring and tropical fruit on nose. Taste of watermelon and citrus fruit, with good acidity. Nice long finish. Delicious sipping on its own, it also pairs well with the moderately spiced Baked Chicken Tandoori.

Baked Tandoori Chicken paired with a rose wine.

When making Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken again during the winter of 2017, we paired it with a 2014 Foris Dry Gewürztraminer ($16, 13.9% ABV) from Southern Oregon. I’ve had Foris Pinot Noir a number of times, but this was my first time trying their Gewürz. I really liked it. Fruit forward with good spice elements, it paired well with the tandoori chicken and the aloo palak we had alongside it.

Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken recipe

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Recipe card

Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken

Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken recipe
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5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

4.7 from 6 reviews

Chicken breast fillets bake with a yogurt spice blend for a moist, flavorful chicken.

  • Author: Cooking Chat
  • Prep Time: 20 mins
  • Cook Time: 20 mins
  • Total Time: 40 mins
  • Yield: 4 servings 1x
  • Category: main
  • Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients

Scale
  • 3 chicken breast fillets, small to medium sized
  • ½ cup yogurt (coconut yogurt for a dairy free option)
  • 1 tbsp orange juice
  • 1 scallion, minced
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 pinch ground ginger
  • 1 tsp garam masala
  • ½ tsp curry powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • cooked basmati rice for serving

Instructions

  1. Combine the yogurt, orange juice, scallion, garlic, ginger, garam masala, curry and salt in a bowl.
  2. Rinse and pat dry the chicken fillets. Add to the bowl with the yogurt spice blend. Gently turn the chicken over so that both sides of the chicken are coated with the yogurt. Set aside to marinate for 15 minutes.
  3. Preheat an oven to 400 while the chicken marinates.
  4. After the chicken has marinated for 15 minutes, line a flat baking pan with aluminum foil. Use a fork to remove the chicken fillets and transfer them to the baking pan, gently shaking the chicken over the bowl first to remove any excess marinade.
  5. Put the baking pan in the oven and bake for 18 to 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Ours was perfect in 18 minutes, but check for doneness by slicing the chicken open.
  6. Serve the chicken with basmati rice, and other Indian side dishes of your choosing.

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Variation: Baked Tandoori Chicken Thighs

Our original Baked Tandoori Chicken recipe uses chicken breast fillets. We recently made a variation of the recipe using chicken thighs. We used 1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, tossing the chicken in the same marinade as described above. The chicken thighs baked for 20 minutes at 400 degrees in a convection oven, and came out very well.

Easy Baked Tandoori ChickenFull Disclosure: The rose from Balletto was sent as a complimentary sample. As always, I only share about products I use and and enjoy, and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jeff the Chef

    February 04, 2016 at 8:54 pm

    A recipe that uses three breasts! Those are so hard to come by. This chicken looks delicious.

    Reply
    • Cooking Chat

      February 05, 2016 at 6:03 am

      Thanks Jeff, it came out nicely!

      Reply
  2. Catherine

    March 08, 2016 at 2:41 pm

    Dear David, your chicken sounds delicious! What a great meal! Take care, Catherine

    Reply
    • Cooking Chat

      March 08, 2016 at 5:46 pm

      Thanks Catherine!

      Reply
  3. Sahar

    May 09, 2016 at 10:07 pm

    I think this recipe is a little different from the noral I dian Tandoris. Looks great and I love the curry and the rice.

    Reply
    • Cooking Chat

      May 10, 2016 at 5:18 am

      Yes, it is definitely my own adaptation of the traditional recipe. Streamlined for weekday cooking!

      Reply
  4. Jodi

    March 14, 2017 at 7:08 am

    Excellent!

    Reply
  5. Brandi Crawford

    March 14, 2017 at 7:50 am

    That chicken looks juicy! And your wine pairing looks fab!

    Reply
    • Cooking Chat

      March 15, 2017 at 8:12 pm

      try to make sure our chicken is always juicy here!

      Reply
  6. Liz @ I Heart Vegetables

    March 14, 2017 at 8:13 am

    Ohhh yum! I have some friends coming to visit this weekend and I think they’d love this recipe!

    Reply
  7. linda spiker

    March 14, 2017 at 9:19 am

    Wow it doesn’t get easier than that!

    Reply
  8. Julia @ HappyFoods Tube

    March 14, 2017 at 9:31 am

    I have never tried any Indian dish. Looks like I could start with this easy recipe!

    Reply
    • Cooking Chat

      March 14, 2017 at 6:20 pm

      It would be a good starting point! Traditional Indian recipes can be a bit intimidating to the unitiated.

      Reply
  9. Melissa King

    March 03, 2018 at 10:18 pm

    I never think to have wine with Indian food but I love that you’ve made the pairing so easy!

    Reply
    • Cooking Chat

      March 04, 2018 at 6:35 am

      Thanks Melissa, I find a good wine pairing really enhances the Indian food.

      Reply
  10. Taylor Kiser

    March 19, 2018 at 6:41 am

    We love Indian food! This looks so delicious!

    Reply
  11. Linda | Brunch-n-Bites

    March 29, 2018 at 12:02 am

    Well, you can always count me in for Tandoori Chicken night since it’s my favorite too. This recipe simply shows how flavorful it is; however I never have it paired with wine and it sounds so tasty.

    Reply
    • Cooking Chat

      March 29, 2018 at 5:22 am

      Thanks Linda! I’d say it does get even better with some good wine.

      Reply
  12. Lane Patten

    April 10, 2018 at 9:43 am

    I love Indian flavors too! And this is so simple! Love it!

    Reply
    • Cooking Chat

      April 13, 2018 at 5:56 am

      Thanks Lane! We are big Indian food fans here.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Italian Wine for an Easy Indian Feast | Cooking Chat says:
    February 6, 2016 at 7:00 am

    […] one easy recipe I made from scratch along with a couple items relying on some prepared food. I made Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken, which I blogged about earlier this week. That was a hit–in fact, B. had the leftovers last […]

    Reply
  2. Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken - Yum Goggle says:
    February 7, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    […] GET THE RECIPE […]

    Reply
  3. Best Baked Chicken Breast Recipes - The Most Tasty You Can Ever Eat! says:
    September 4, 2017 at 8:21 pm

    […] Get the complete recipe here […]

    Reply
  4. Indian Roasted Cauliflower with Garam Masala | Cooking Chat says:
    March 7, 2019 at 6:21 pm

    […] As I mentioned, I first made this Indian roasted cauliflower to go with butter chicken; I will be posting that recipe soon! Meanwhile, it would also be nice alongside our Easy Baked Tandoori Chicken. […]

    Reply

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Hi there! I'm David. I love creating tasty, (mostly) healthy recipes, finding great wine pairings, and sharing good food with family and friends. learn more about me!

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