Chicken Saag

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This vegetable packed chicken saag curry is fakeaway at its finest! A quick, easy and tasty take on the classic British Indian restaurant favourite. One pan and no need to make a base sauce in advance! Ideal for batch cooking and filling the freezer.

Servings:

Author: Helen Best-Shaw

Prep Time5

Cook Time30

Total Time35

Ingredients

1 tbsp ghee or cooking oil
1 onion
500 g chicken thighs - Skinned and diced
1
½ cup chicken stock
1 tbsp tomato puree
100 g tomatoes - 2
100 g spinach

Spices

2 tsp garlic paste - 3
2 tsp ginger paste - 3
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chilli powder

Instructions

Fry the onion - Peel and dice the onion. Melt the ghee, or add the oil to a 9"/23cm deep frying pan which has a lid. Add the onion and fry over a medium heat for for a few minutes until it is translucent and has some fragrance.
1 tbsp ghee or cooking oil, 1 onion
Add the spices - Add the garlic, ginger paste, and spices. Stir and cook for another minute or so.
2 tsp garlic paste, 2 tsp ginger paste, 2 tsp garam masala, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp chilli powder
Add the chicken - Add the diced chicken thighs, stir to coat with the spices, and cook until they are no longer pink on the outside.
500 g chicken thighs
Add liquid - Add stock, tomato puree and tomatoes - stir and cover
½ cup chicken stock, 100 g tomatoes, 1 tbsp tomato puree
Simmer - Bring to a gentle simmer, cover with the lid ajar, or use a splatter guard to allow the steam to escape and the curry to reduce, whilst not making too much of a mess of your stove top.
Let the curry cook for about 20 minutes, stirring from time to time, until it is reduced and thickened.
Spinach - Now add the spinach leaves, removing any bulkier stems. Just place them on top of the sauce, there no need to stir it in at this stage. Cover and let everything gently simmer for another two minutes until the spinach wilts.
If you want to repeat the process with more spinach, you will be surprised at how much you can add, as it wilts to almost nothing
100 g spinach
Thicken - stir the cooked spinach through, taste and season if needed.
If the curry needs to be thickened mix a teaspoonful or two of cornflour/cornstarch in a small bowl with the same volume of sauce from the curry to form a “slurry”, before stirring it back into the curry gently cooking until it thickens.
When thickening with cornflour always make the paste / slurry in a separate bowl never add the cornflour directly to the hot curry – you will never get the lumps out.
Serve - Serve the chicken curry with traditional British Indian restaurant side dishes, such as pilau rice or cumin rice.
Flatbreads such as rotis, parathas or naan are other options. A bowl of creamy home made raita helps reduce the heat!

Notes

Ingredients

Chicken Thighs are always my first choice for chicken pieces. Because they have more fat they have more flavour and are also cheaper than chicken breast. You can also use chicken breast.
This recipe uses filleted and diced thighs. You can either buy thighs ready filleted, or remove the skin and bone yourself. Pop both into a bag the freezer for the next time you make chicken stock.
Tomatoes - about 100g, or what you have. This recipe is very forgiving. 2 medium or a handful of cherry tomatoes.
Prepared garlic and ginger paste - This is central to easy Indian cooking at home, and a massive time saver. Depending where you buy you can buy a jar of mixed ginger and garlic, or individual jars of just the one ingredient. Leftovers can be portioned into an ice cube tray and frozen.
If you do not have them then use 3 cloves garlic and a 1 inch piece of ginger root. the rest of the ginger root can be stored in a tub in the freezer.
Spices - the base flavour of this curry is from the blend of spices; if you are missing one of these then just add a little curry powder. For a hotter curry use a hotter chilli powder rather than simply add more as that will unbalance the mixture.

Storage

Fridge – Allow to cool, and as soon as it is cold pack into an airtight container. You can keep it in the fridge for up to 3 days, or freeze for 3 months.

Freezer – Cool and pack into an airtight container. Store in the freezer for up to 3 months. To use, defrost and reheat in a pan on the stove top, or heat in the microwave, making sure it is properly hot before serving.

Variations

Use leftover roast chicken – fry the onions and spices, and then add the cooked chicken along with the canned tomatoes, coconut milk and stock.

Add extra vegetables – you can make this curry go far further buy adding some extra vegetables, or pulses. Fry sliced peppers or mushrooms along with the onions, add a bag of spinach at the end of cooking (add on top of the curry, pop the lid on and leave to wilt for a minute, stir in and repeat if needed). Or add a can of any type of bean or pulse – rinse and add – chickpeas would work very well.

Adjust the spicing and heat to taste.

Hints and tips

Take time to fry the spices and chicken properly, so that they are fragrant and the chicken is thoroughly cooked on the outside and well covered in the spice mixture.

Curries lend themselves very well to batch cooking and it is easy to double this recipe up, BUT if you do so don't double the stock.

I don’t recommend halving this recipe – the spice quantities become fiddly and a smaller batch is more likely to dry out. It freezes and reheats so well it is the perfect dish to cook once and eat twice.

• Please note that the nutrition information provided below is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

• Unless stated otherwise cup conversions have been made with an online tool. For accuracy please check with your favoured conversion tool. We recommend buying inexpensive digital kitchen scales.