Chilli Chicken is one of the most popular recipes from Indo-Chinese cuisine. It is usually served as an appetizer or as a side dish.

Though the dish has a few Chinese flavours and cooking style, we generally prepare it with Indian spices in Indian style. Hence the dish has acquired Indo-Chinese flavour.

Chilli Chicken is such a dish we love to eat in almost every time of the year. This recipe can be prepared in different ways. When cooked without gravy the dish is known by ‘Dry Chilli Chicken‘, served as an appetizer or starter in many restaurants or house parties. Again the same dish with gravy is served as a side dish in the main course menu.

Some people think it to be spicy as it sounds from the name Chilli Chicken. However, the recipe which I have shared is a homemade and less spicy one. But if you like spiciness in your dishes like the one served outside (be it at any restaurant or hotel or Dhaba), you can increase the number of green chillies and chilli sauce in your recipe.

In the restaurant or roadside hotels, they used to prepare it with lots of sauce and chillies. Those ones can be eaten once in a while as it is not good for our health. That is why I have come up with a Chilli Chicken recipe which you can cook easily at home.

I have learnt the recipe from my mother. She used to prepare Chilli Chicken in a homely way. We love to have this sweet and tangy chicken dish with Fried Rice or Veg noodles. This dish goes well with Rumali Rotis or Parathas also.

Some other dishes that you may like:

Without further delay, let’s get started with the recipe.

Ingredients :

400 grams Boneless Chicken
4-5 tablespoon Cornflour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
4-5 tablespoon Maida or all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon Black pepper powder (optional)
Salt, Turmeric & Sugar as required
1 tablespoon Cumin and Coriander powder
1-1.5 tablespoon Ginger Garlic paste or chopped pieces
1 tablespoon Soy sauce
2 tablespoon Tomato sauce
2 Eggs
1-2 Dry red chilly
1-2 Bay Leaves
2-3 large-sized Onion
2 large Capsicum cubed
1 large-sized Tomato
Oil for deep frying

How to prepare Chili Chicken:

For marination –

Take a large bowl. Add Cornflour, Maida, Baking powder, Salt, Soy sauce and egg in it. Now mix all the ingredients very well.

Add one more egg if required.

Make sure to form a smooth-thick and flowing mixture so that the chicken pieces can be dipped and coated well in it.

Take a mixing bowl. Marinate the chicken pieces with half of the above mixture. Keep aside another half of the mixture to use in preparing gravy.

Frying Chicken –

Take a heavy-bottomed pan or Kadhai. Heat oil in it. Add the marinated chicken pieces in the heated oil. You can deep fry or shallow fry the chicken whichever you prefer.

Fry the chicken on medium heat until they are cooked well. Keep stirring gently so that chicken cubes get cooked from all sides evenly.

When the chicken is cooked completely, keep those aside in a bowl. Drain the excess oil with a tissue paper.

Cooking Chilli Chicken –

Now let’s make the gravy. For gravy preparation, first of all, take a kadhai. Add some oil in it. Temper the oil with 1-2 dry red chillies, bay leaves and 1/2 teaspoon Panch Phoron (optional).

Add the cubed onions. Let it fry for 1 minute on medium flame till it turns light brown.

Add the chopped ginger and garlic.

Then add the cubed capsicum, chopped tomatoes and slit green chillies. Fry those until they turn little soft and raw flavor of the spices are gone.

Now add salt, turmeric and a little bit of sugar. Also add cumin and coriander powder. Mix all well.

After about a minute or two, pour the sauces one by one – Tomato sauce.

Now goes in the soy sauce.

Give it a nice mix. Saute the veggies along with the added ingredients for 2-3 minutes.

For Gravy preparation –

Now is the time to add the required amount of water to make the gravy.

After that add the chicken pieces. Mix it well so that the chicken pieces are well coated with the mixture. Let it cook for another 2 minutes.

Add the cornflour and maida mixture which we kept aside during marination.

Cook it until the gravy is adjusted according to your choice. Turn off the flame.
Chilli Chicken gravy is ready to serve hot. Enjoy it with some fried rice or noodles.