These oven-baked chicken tikka kebabs are delicious skewers with juicy, yogurt-marinated tandoori chicken pieces interspersed with fresh bell peppers and red onion.
What is chicken tikka?
Chicken tikka or tandoori chicken tikka is an Indian style of chicken that is marinated in a spiced yogurt sauce. The chicken pieces are skewered and placed in a hot tandoor oven to be cooked at high temperatures, leaving a charred, smoky, bright-red barbecued chicken. The chicken tastes delicious as an appetizer served alongside an herbaceous and spicy cilantro-mint chutney or can serve as the main course paired with rice or naan.
Why this recipe works
- Using chicken thighs and marinating the chicken in yogurt ensures that the chicken is moist during cooking.
- Using the dhungar method to trap the smoke in the marinated chicken helps it have have a smoky taste and aroma.
- Crafting aluminum foil rods at the ends of the baking sheet keeps the skewers elevated, allowing the chicken to char instead of steam, and prevents the marinade from sticking to the pan.
- Broiling the chicken at the end allows the pieces to get a nice char, similar to cooking in a tandoor.
Tandoori Chicken Spice Blend
My recipe uses a homemade blend of tandoori chicken spices to get my perfect balance of heat and tang for the tandoori chicken. Here are the ingredients in my spice blend and what they bring to the final dish:
- Kashmiri chili powder - Adds heat, smokiness, AND color to the dish. You can use ½ the amount of another chili powder but the resulting color may not be as vibrant.
- Garam masala - Adds warming and nutty flavors of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves.
- Black salt (Kala namak) - Adds a tangy and tart flavor.
- Turmeric powder - Adds earthiness.
- Cumin powder - Adds nuttiness and warmth.
- Asafetida - Mimics the taste of onion/garlic and is quite pungent.
- Sea salt - Helps season the chicken and brings out the flavor of the other spices.
- Sugar - Helps balance the heat in the dish.
- Dried methi leaves - Adds a bitterness and earthiness to the chicken.
- Fresh mint leaves - Adds freshness and herbaceousness. You can use dried mint leaves in this recipe too.
The exact quantities of each of these spices are listed down below. However, if you don't have time to gather these ingredients, you can go to an Indian or Middle Eastern grocery store and buy Tandoori Chicken Masala, which is essentially a blend of these spices, to use instead.
Buy Now → Ginger garlic paste
This recipe has you blend a big piece of fresh ginger and garlic with the other ingredients to create a paste. In my opinion, this yields the freshest and cleanest taste of ginger and garlic in a recipe and helps you control exactly how much of each ingredient you are adding to the recipe.
However, if you don't have a blender or if you are strapped on time, you can easily buy pre-processed ginger garlic paste from the Indian grocery store. You want ~1.5 tablespoons of ginger garlic paste for 1 inch (8 grams) of ginger and 3 cloves (13 grams) of garlic.
Buy Now → 
Tandoori Marinade
The tandoori marinade for this recipe is just a mix of ginger garlic paste, the tandoori spice blend, yogurt, and lemon juice! The yogurt is key to this recipe because it creates a paste that is thick, clings onto the chicken, and adds a tangy flavor to the final dish.
Dhungar method to get smoky flavor
The dhungar method is a way of adding a smoky flavor to the final dish. It involves burning a piece of charcoal directly over a flame until it is fiery red and forms a light gray exterior, placing the coal in a small bowl, and pouring a bit of ghee on top of the coal to make it smoke.
For our tandoori chicken tikka kebabs, the marinated chicken will be placed in a wide bowl that can be closed with a lid or foil. The hot smoking coal will be placed in the center of the bowl and closed so that the smoke can be trapped with the chicken. As a result, the chicken will have a smoky aroma and taste that is reminiscent of cooking the chicken in a charcoal tandoor.
Tips for cooking chicken tikka in the oven
- Make sure that the chicken kebabs hover in the center of the sheet tray. Either use a sheet tray that is small enough for the end of the skewers to hang off OR create aluminum foil rods on either end of the sheet tray for the skewers to rest on so that the chicken pieces can hover over the sheet tray instead of resting directly on it. This is one of the biggest tricks that helps the chicken cook evenly and helps the marinade not stick to the pan.
- Baste the chicken with ghee or oil to ensure that the exterior chars nicely.
- Place chicken on the top rack of the oven at 450F for a high heat cook. During this whole process we want to mimic the high heat of a tandoor, so placing it on the top allows the chicken to get the most heat and the best char.
- Take the chicken out at the halfway point and rotate to ensure every side gets cooked evenly.
FAQ
Yes. The main thing that thing that needs blending is the ginger and garlic into a paste. If you don't have a blender, you can either make the ginger garlic paste with a mortar and pestle, or get store-bought ginger garlic paste from the Indian grocery store.
Yes, you can use wooden skewers as long as you have soaked them in water for at least 1 hour and up to overnight to ensure that they don't burn in the oven.
No, using the charcoal to get a smoky flavor is an optional step, but a step that adds a great bit of depth to the recipe.
Yes, you can substitute the dry spices listed as tandoori masala in the recipe with store-bought tandoori masala.
Related Recipes
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Oven Baked Chicken Tikka Kebabs
Ingredients
- 1 lb chicken thigh boneless skinless
- 1 red onion
- 1 green bell pepper
- 1 inch (8 g) piece of ginger
- 2 tablespoons (25 g) Greek yogurt
- 3 (13 g) garlic cloves
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
Tandoori Spice Blend (Note 1)
- 1 tablespoon Kashmiri chili powder
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ¾ teaspoon garam masala
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon kala namak (black salt) plus more to sprinkle
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
- ¼ teaspoon cumin powder
- ¼ teaspoon dried methi leaves
- ⅛ teaspoon asafetida
- 10-15 (2 g) fresh mint leaves
Other Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons ghee melted butter or vegetable oil for basting and smoking chicken
- Optional charcoal (for adding an extra smoky finish at the end)
- cilantro-mint chutney as a dipping sauce (Optional)
- lemon rice for serving (Optional)
Instructions
Prep work
- If using wooden skewers, let them soak in a shallow tray of water for at least 1 hour. This step is to ensure that they don't burn in the oven.
- Use paper towels to pat the chicken dry. This step is important because it helps the marinade stick onto the chicken.
- Cut 1 lb chicken thigh into 1.5 inch pieces. You will want to make sure the pieces of chicken are large so you can easily skewer them without the skewer falling out. The chicken pieces will shrink as they cook.
- Cut 1 red onion into petals: Cut the onion in half and remove the skin and root of the onion. Place each half flat side down and cut vertically down the middle. Now release each layer of the onion to get thin petals of onions that can be skewered. Set aside until ready to cook.
- Cut 1 green bell pepper: Cut ½ inch off the top of the bell pepper and cut ¼ inch off the bottom of the pepper. Now cut a slit through the side of the pepper so it can be laid down flat. Use your knife to remove the seeds and white membrane in the inside of the pepper. Cut the pepper horizontally down the middle and create 1 inch wide peppers similar to the size of the onion petals. Set aside until ready to cook.
Make the marinade
- Make tandoori seasoning (skip this step if using store-bought tandoori masala): In a small bowl mix 1 tablespoon Kashmiri chili powder, ¾ teaspoon garam masala, 1 teaspoon sea salt, ½ teaspoon kala namak (black salt), ½ teaspoon sugar, ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder, ¼ teaspoon cumin powder, ¼ teaspoon dried methi leaves, and ⅛ teaspoon asafetida.
- Roughly chop 1 inch (8 g) piece of ginger so it can be easily processed by a small food processor.
- Add the ginger, 3 (13 g) garlic cloves, 10-15 (2 g) fresh mint leaves, the tandoori spice seasoning, 2 tablespoons (25 g) Greek yogurt, and 2 teaspoons lemon juice to a small food processor or blender and blend until a smooth paste forms. It is important that the ginger pieces are fully incorporated and that there aren’t any chunks remaining.
Dhungar Method to add smoky flavor (Optional)
- Pour marinade into a large bowl, add chicken into the marinade, and massage to coat. Tear a piece of aluminum foil large enough to tent the bowl in order to trap the charcoal flavor into the marinade.
- Take 1 piece of charcoal and place it directly on the stovetop using tongs. Allow the charcoal to light and burn a bright orange before transferring to a small heat-safe bowl.
- Pour ~1 tablespoon of ghee or vegetable oil directly over the charcoal so that the charcoal starts smoking.
- Quickly and carefully place the smoking charcoal bowl in the bowl of marinated chicken and loosely wrap the lid with aluminum foil or a lid. Allow it to sit for 5-10 minutes to allow the chicken to absorb the charcoal smell and flavor.
- Remove the foil and remove the small charcoal bowl.
- Let the chicken marinate in the refrigerator and let sit for at least 1 hour but preferably overnight.
Cook tikka kebabs in the oven
- Preheat the oven to the convection bake setting at 425F or a regular bake setting of 450F.
- Thread an onion petal, followed by marinated chicken, and then bell pepper onto the skewers. Repeat this pattern two more times making sure to leave at least 1 inch both at the bottom and top of the skewer.
- Line the bottom of the sheet tray with aluminum foil to make cleanup of the meat juices easier.
- Use aluminum foil and form it into the shape of two rods and place each rod along the width of the sheet pan. The rods are where the skewer tops and bottoms will rest, ensuring the chicken can hover in the middle. This technique is really important as it gives the chicken air circulation and ensures that the marinade doesn't stick to the bottom of the sheet tray.
- Melt 2 tablespoons ghee. Brush the top of the chicken liberally with the melted ghee.
- Place the chicken in the top rack of the oven for 8 minutes. After 8 minutes rotate the chicken, baste with some more ghee, and place back in the oven for another 8 minutes.
- Take the chicken out of the oven and check that the internal temperature of the chicken reads 165F. If not, continue to cook until it reaches that temperature.
- Give the chicken one more basting of ghee and turn on the broil setting of the oven to high. Keep an eye on the chicken and allow the chicken to char and form black spots, which should take ~1-3 minutes but can really vary depending on the strength of the broiler, so keep an eye out.
- Remove chicken from the oven. Sprinkle a bit more of kala namak on top and serve with cilantro mint chutney on the side and lemon rice or naan to accompany the dish.
Notes and Tips
- (Note 1) - I prefer making the tandoori spice blend at home with the ratios I've listed above. However, if you are in a time crunch, you can buy a tandoori chicken spice blend from the Indian grocery store to substitute. Look at the back of the box to check if the spice blend contains salt or if you need to add additional salt.
- (Note 2) - I also prefer to make ginger/garlic paste at home and that is the main purpose of the blender in this recipe. However, if you don't have one you can either use a mortar and pestle or opt to use a store-bought ginger/garlic paste. You will need roughly 1.5 tablespoons of ginger/garlic paste for this recipe.
Laura
I have made the weeknight butter chicken and the oven-baked tandoori kebabs and they were both incredible.
1) I accidentally bought vanilla bean ghee from Whole Foods instead of regular ghee. If I use this in my next cooking, will it affect the flavor?
2) I only had time to soak the skewers for 20 mins but they still came out OK.
3) I tried to rotate the skewers after 8 minutes but due to the weight of the chicken they kept just falling back to the original position. Any tips on keeping them rotated?
4) I didn't follow the last step of putting on the black salt because I was concerned the chicken would be too salty - do you think I should still add it?
5) I love the smoky flavor - do you think it would taste even better to leave the charcoal in there for longer than 10 minutes or is 10 minutes really the max?
Thank you!
Shri Repp
I'm so happy this went well!
1) yes I think the vanilla bean one will make it taste sweet so I wouldn't recommend. If you have butter in your house, its super easy to make ghee at home too - and honestly it is cheaper and tastes a world better. Here is a link to how to do that. https://moonrice.net/how-to-make-ghee/. As for the vanilla bean ghee - use it for desserts!!! Whether for the kesar malai peda we made in class or anything else!
3) So when you skewer them, try to skewer them through the middle that may help. If you plan on making more skewer-y things - metal skewers are really a game changer cause the weight helps it from rotating back around.
4) It's really up to you! Black salt isn't as salty but more like tangy compared to sea salt. Try sprinkling a pinch on one piece and see if you like it, if not omit and if you do like it then you can sprinkle it on the rest.
5) Yay!! No you totally can leave it with the charcoal even longer! It will be so delish! 🙂
Thanks for trying this recipe out and leaving a review and thanks for the detailed questions. I love answering them 🙂