The Ultimate Guide to Making Tandoori Chicken Pizza: Enjoy a slice of Tandoori Chicken Pizza with homemade Tandoori Chicken. The oven charred chicken is spiced with tandoori masala and tastes like it came from a tandoori! It will feel like your favorite uncle’s backyard with red onion and green pepper!
Tandoori Chicken is India’s best meat dish, as I’ve said before. Its flavor, vibrant red colour from spices, charred pieces, and versatility make me obsessed.
Growing up, I loved tandoori chicken. During my childhood in Scottsdale, Arizona, we always went to an Indian restaurant’s buffet on weekends. My plate would have tandoori chicken and chicken tikka masala with Rices. My only meat is chicken. I adore Indian chicken!
The Ultimate Guide to Making Tandoori Chicken Pizza
What’s Tandoori Chicken?
- Dry tandoori chicken is marinated in curd and other spices and roasted in a clay oven to give it a vibrant red colour. Before India’s independence and partition in the mid-1900s, the dish came from Punjab.
- With naan or rice, it’s often served as an appetiser or main course. It reportedly inspired butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, and other Indian yogurt-and-spice marinaded chicken dishes.
- Tandoori chicken is dry, unlike Indian curries, so it can be added to burritos, quesadillas, pizza, and more.
Ingredient
- Pizza dough, cheese, sauce, and your favorite toppings are needed to make pizza.
- Pizza dough—you can use your favorite dough or buy pre-made dough from the store. Thick or thin crust works well. Try my homemade No-Yeast Pizza Dough for thin crust. Also use gluten-free crusts.
- I prefer mozzarella cheese with Indian spices. Tangy and mild, it’s delicious.
- Pizza Sauce—Using San Mariano whole peeled tomatoes and Indian methods, we’re making pizza sauce. Simple pizza sauce can be substituted, but add tandoori masala for extra flavor.
- Tandoori chicken is usually served with red onion and green bell pepper at family barbecues.
Tandoori chicken
- These spices may require a trip to the Indian grocer, so I’ve included substitutes if you can’t find them to marinate the chicken. A lot of companies sell ready made tandoori chicken marinade, which works too.
- To give the tandoori masala more surface area to flavor, I buy chicken tender cuts. Cut chicken breasts into smaller pieces. Using chicken thighs works too. The same marinade works for cubed paneer, a vegetarian substitute.
- All Indian dishes need ginger garlic paste. Equal amounts of garlic and ginger are pasted. Recipe for homemade ginger garlic paste!
- Kasai meths—dried fenugreek leaves. It’s optional but adds flavor. Dried cilantro works too.
- Freshness and acidity from lemon juice
- Yogurt—curd or Indian curd. Greek or plain yogurt works. It balances spiciness, adds tang, and coats the chicken in marinade.
Make Tandoori Chicken
- This tandoori chicken recipe is shortened. We’re still getting the full flavor, though! Cutting slits and basting in chilli oil are steps I would usually take for maximum flavor and colour.
- Tandoori chicken requires a tandoori, but 98% of people don’t have one. An oven makes tandoori chicken simple. Alternatively, grilled tandoori chicken is the next best thing to a tandoori!
- Chicken marinade. Use a bowl, Ziploc bag, or anything to marinate chicken. Whisk ginger garlic paste, kasuri meth, lemon juice, oil, yogurt, and tandoori masala in the bowl. Split the chicken into tenders or halves for more surface area. Put the chicken in the marinade bowl and toss until coated.
- Add more Kashmir chilli powder or red food colouring to get the red colour from the tandoori masala. Yogurt tempers heat. To let the flavors permeate the chicken, marinate it overnight or for at least one hour.
- An absolute must: Tandoori masala! You can make your own mix, but I prefer store-bought. Tandoori masala makes tandoori chicken red. Increase Kashmirs chilli powder if not red enough. To get red, many people use red food colouring. This masala is unmatched. It’s necessary.
- Chicken bake. Come over if you have a tandoori. If not, bake the chicken at 400°F for 20–25 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 165°F to ensure full cooking. Charring gives the chicken its delicious flavor! Overcooking will dry out the chicken.
- Chicken shredded. Once cooked, remove the chicken from the oven. Chicken should be shredded into bite-sized pieces with two forks. To shred chicken quickly, place it in a bowl and use a stand mixer or handheld mixer. Avoid over shredding.
Making Tandoori Marsala Pizza Sauce
- We combine classic pizza sauce with Indian ingredients like ginger garlic paste and masala.
- After heating olive oil in a large pot, add diced onion and ginger garlic paste. Aromatic ginger garlic paste and translucent onion are needed. Add whole peeled tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, black pepper, tandoori masala, sugar, and oregano. The back of a wooden spoon should smash the tomatoes.
- To thicken and flavor the sauce, simmer for 30 minutes. Make silky sauce with an immersion blender.
Putting pizza together
- Start assembly by preheating your oven to 550°F or higher. In my tiny NYC apartment, it always sets off the smoke alarm, so open your windows. Prepare pizza toppings before assembling. Thin green bell pepper and red onion slices are my suggestions.
- Before cooking, oil your cast iron skillet’s bottom and sides with olive oil. To prevent pizza from sticking to pizza pans or stones, use cornmeal.
- Before stretching refrigerated store-bought pizza dough, let it come to room temperature for 30 minutes. Once at room temperature, add your desired amount of pizza dough to the skillet and stretch it evenly to the sides with your fingertips.
- Apply a serving of our tandoori-spiced pizza sauce to the pizza’s center. Circularly spread pizza sauce to the edges with the ladle bottom. Top the pizza with fresh or shredded mozzarella and shredded tandoori chicken. Add toppings.
- Transfer the pizza to the hot oven using oven mitts—beware of the hot air! Place pizza in oven for 13-15 minutes. Remove it from the oven immediately. Cutting it with a pizza cutter yields 6-8 slices.