The tandoori paste is a yogurt-based sauce prepared with spices, which is used to marinate tandoori meals such as the tandoori chicken.
This Indian aromatic paste is a time saver and a few spoonfuls will turn your dinner into the tandoori dish from your favorite Indian restaurant!
If you don’t know tandoori, you will need to catch up because it’s one of the worlds most favorite Indian foods.
Chicken Tandoori made the tandoori flavors popular among the west and and east, and without it, Indian food would have not stepped across the borders.
How to make this Tandoori paste?
The tandoori paste itself is a 2 minutes job. Just mix all the ingredients together.
I use already ground spices to speed up things.
For the best flavor result, dry roast whole spices, let cool and grind the spices fine.
How to use the Tandoori sauce to marinate foods?
This spiced yogurt paste is most famously used as a tandoori chicken marinade.
Chicken pieces are left to marinate in the tandoori paste.
The chicken is then roasted in the oven.
You can use the tandoori paste with other white meats, with fish, vegetables such as cauliflower, mushrooms and even withsoya chunks.
You can get a bit creative too.
To give you an idea, I sprinkled some of the paste on a pizza before baking it the other day and the pizza tasted amazing!
The tandoori paste is vegetarian, gluten-free, low-carb, nut-free and without any artificial red food coloring.
How to store the tandoori sauce?
You can prepare the tandoori paste from scratch whenever you need a fresh tandoori masala spice blend marination or you can store it for another day.
I freeze a batch and use it whenever I feel like tandoori flavors because whenever you prepare a batch you will hardly require more than a few tablespoons full.
You will be better off saving the rest of your homemade tandoori sauce for another day.
I like to freeze the paste in smaller batches in a small Tupperware or in zip lock bags.
OR pour the tandoori paste into ice cube trays and freeze (just as I did with my green papaya meat tendering paste).
Then transfer the frozen paste cubes to a zip lock bag.
That way you can use as much as you need only.
Tandoori Paste Color
Tandoori chicken is usually deep red when sold commercially, which is because food coloring is added.
You can add 1-2 drops of red food coloring if you want or paprika powder.
I didn’t opt for the paprika powder in this recipe because the paprika powder is hard to be found in India and very uncommon.
Adding Paprika powder to make a red tandoori paste, wouldn’t be very Indian… And I still wanted this to be as authentic as possible.
More Yogurt based Indian curries
- Chicken Korma
- Paneer Korma
- Vegetable Korma
- Punjabi Khadi by honeywhatscooking.com
Dear Reader, have you ever tried preparing your own tandoori dish?
Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas with us in the comment section further below!
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Easy Tandoori Paste Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup Greek Yogurt
- 1 Teaspoon Turmeric Powder
- 1 Teaspoon Red Chili Pepper or Cayenne Pepper, ground
- 1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper ground
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons Coriander Seed ground
- 1 1/2 Teaspoons Cumin Seed ground
- 1/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon ground
- 1/4 Teaspoon Cardamom ground
- 1 Teaspoon Garam Masala ground
- 1/2 Teaspoon Chaat Masala Optional
- 1/4 Teaspoon Clove ground
- 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Ginger + Garlic paste
- 1-2 Tablespoons Cilantro fresh, chopped, aka Coriander
- 1 Teaspoon Oil
Instructions
Notes
- The Tandoori Paste makes a medium sized batch.
- Use how much ever needed to marinate chicken, vegetables, fish, seafood, soya or mushrooms and freeze the rest for another day.
- If you can’t get Chaat Masala for the paste, just leave it out as it is optional. Chaat Masala can give a very authentic Indian flavor to the Tandoori Paste.
Nutrition
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Kimberly says
This dish turned out amazingly good. I served it over Miracle Noodles. Thanks so much!
Helene Dsouza says
Thanks for your feedback Kimberly.
DEEPA ABRAHAM says
Wow😇
Helene Dsouza says
Sounds like you tried out the tandoori paste 😀
John/Kitchen Riffs says
Easy and yummy! Best combo ever. 🙂 Thanks!
Maureen | Orgasmic Chef says
I have trouble eating fish but no trouble at all with tandoori chicken, I haven’t made it at home but there’s a lovely Indian restaurant not far from here that makes wonderful tandoori chicken. Now I know what I’m going to have for dinner and it won’t take any work at all. 🙂
I need to try your recipe and make it at home.
Raia Todd says
I’m definitely pinning this. I love trying to make my own things like this, and it sounds like it would be a delicious addition to meats and rices.
Cliona Keane says
Yummy! I love tandoori and this homemade paste is definitely being saved for another time!
Tara says
Yum! I love all the spices. Homemade is so much better. Love all of your tips.
Veena Azmanov says
I love ❤️ a good tandoori. And it’s all starts with a good old tandoori paste. Homemade makes a huge difference. Isn’t it?
jacquee | i sugar coat it! says
I adore tandoori! Thanks for sharing this delightful recipe. Time to raid my spice cupboard!