Sautéed Chicken with Tikka Masala Sauce Recipe

How to Make Chicken with Tikka Masala Sauce

Another "shortcut meal" I pulled together this week was prepared by sautéing some boneless, skinless chicken breasts in olive oil and butter and finishing in a commercial sauce I found at Whole Foods.

The Tikka Masala Sauce is from Maya Kaimal's line of products.  She is an expert on Indian food and has appeared on Martha Stewart, the Food Network, and the Today Show, and writes about Indian cooking for "Saveur" and "Food & Wine."

I love Indian food but don't have much experience making it at home. I know you use many spices I don't usually keep in the house and how vital these spices are to creating exquisite flavor.

Tikka Masala sauce is a creamy tomato-based curry, mildly spiced with cinnamon, cardamom, and clove. It's great on chicken but works well with fish or vegetables.  I remember reading about Maya Kaimal's products in one of my cooking magazines that gave it rave reviews, so I had to try it.

Whole Foods Tikka Masala Sauce

Now that I found this product at Whole Foods, it will become one of my favorite "shortcuts."  Also, at Whole Foods, I came across some Mediterranean couscous that I served with chicken in Tikka Masala sauce.

I had never cooked Mediterranean couscous before and thought it was the same as the precooked 5-minute couscous I prepared by adding water and letting it sit covered for a few minutes.

I tried this with Mediterranean couscous, and it didn't work the same way. It needed to be steamed like rice. So I threw it into the rice steamer I gave my wife for Christmas at a ratio of 1 ¼ cups of water to 1 cup of couscous.

Did you know that couscous is granular semolina or durum wheat ground more coarsely than typical wheat flour and used to make pasta and gnocchi?  The semolina is mixed with a bit of water and rolled into the little round grains of couscous. Most people think it is a grain and not a form of pasta. It can also be made from barley or corn, but semolina is the most common form.

The instant 5-minute couscous that you can buy in the supermarket is easy to prepare and works fine in many recipes, but you may want to try the real thing sometime.

Putting this Meal Together

So for this shortcut meal, the sauce is the real shortcut while you still have to cook the chicken breasts, prepare the couscous and prepare a vegetable as a side dish. I sautéed some spinach in garlic and oil, one of my favorite sides.

To learn how to sauté chicken breasts, click here, but if you are already comfortable sautéing, cook the breasts in some butter and olive oil until lightly brown. This should take about three minutes per side, depending on how hot your stovetop burns, the quality of your cookware, and your technique.

After the breasts are cooked, remove one for the kids if they don't like spicy food and pour the Tikka Masala sauce into the pan to heat up with the chicken. That's it. Serve it with rice, couscous, pasta, noodles, some other starch, and a side vegetable.

I put this together one night in 20 minutes, so it is a great meal to serve during the week. If you want to learn more about how to cook Indian food, you may want to check out the cookbook, The Spice Is Right - Easy Indian Cooking For Today. This cookbook will show you how to make classic Indian meals, including great sauces you can prepare at home when you are not in a hurry.

This is an excellent example of taking a shortcut to prepare a quick and easy meal that still requires some prep and cooking. I find these products essential to take some of the pressure off during the week when the time to cook is sometimes limited.

I love finding products like this to make life in the kitchen a little easier. If you have a favorite product that is top quality and has incredible flavor, please let me know, and I will give it a try.

Some of My Favorite Sauce Recipes