Chicken tikka

Chicken tikka is a super-easy grilled or baked dish that’s a natural for introducing your family to Indian food. You can control how spicy it is by limiting the cayenne, chili powder, and tumeric. The recipe below makes a fairly mild sauce, in my opinion, but I do like things pretty hot, so you should ease into it if you’ve got little people.

Not counting the marinating time for the chicken (which I like to do first thing in the morning), it usually takes less than thirty minutes to skewer and cook the chicken. I recommend serving it with flatbread like naan, or over rice, along with grilled seasonal vegetables and mint chutney.
Chicken Tikka

3 – 4 chicken breasts, cut into cubes for skewers

1/2 c yogurt
3 T lemon juice
1 t ground cayenne pepper
1 t fresh ginger, grated
1 t chili powder
1 t tumeric
2 T canned crushed tomatoes
1 t salt

Mix the sauce ingredients well in a zip-loc bag. Add the chicken cubes and squish to coat them. Let them sit and soak in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably all day. Heat either the grill or the oven to around 375. Skewer the cubes and cook over aluminum foil for about 20 minutes.

Image: Cyndi Lavin