Chicken Saag

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.

📝 Ingredients

• 1 tbsp ghee or cooking oil
• 1 onion
• 500 g chicken thighs (Skinned and diced1)
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 100 g tomatoes (2)
• 100 g spinach
• 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

1. 1Fry 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.
2. 2Add the spices - Add the garlic, ginger paste, and spices. Stir and cook for another minute or so.
3. 3Add the chicken - Add the diced chicken thighs, stir to coat with the spices, and cook until they are no longer pink on the outside.
4. 4Add liquid - Add stock, tomato puree and tomatoes - stir and cover
5. 5Simmer - 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.
6. 6Spinach - 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
7. 7Thicken - 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.
8. 8Serve - 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!