This home-style tomato chicken curry recipe makes a very hearty, tender, fall off the bone chicken dish and is loaded with lots of flavour. I prefer to use chicken thighs and drumsticks for this recipe as they tend to be a little more tender – but you could certainly use white meat if that is your preference.
I start by prepping the chicken by removing any excess fat and trimming the skin. I like to leave a bit of skin as it will crisp up when prepping and browning before baking. The marinade has very simple ingredients including curry powder, paprika, Worcestershire, a dash of hot sauce and lemon. I usually do the marinade overnight so the chicken gets a chance to really soak in the flavour, but you could also do the same day if you let it sit in the fridge for at least 3 hours.
From here this is pretty much a one-pot meal to prepare before transferring to a casserole dish for baking. Once the chicken has finished marinating, I add the olive oil and brown sugar to a large frypan, and then let the sugar melt a bit to then carmelize both sides of the chicken until they are nice and golden and skin is slightly crispy. You can adjust the sugar to taste. I usually do in batches so as not to crowd the chicken and then transfer to a prepared casserole dish and set aside.
Finish off prep by tossing the very finely sliced onions and remaining marinade into the same pan used for the chicken to soak up any of the remaining caramelized bits. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the onions have softened. Add the diced tomatoes and give it stir to blend the onions and tomatoes together. Then simply pour the tomato mixture over top of the prepared chicken, cover and pop in the oven. Let this cook for at least 45 minutes or until bubbling and then remove the cover for the last 15 minutes.
I usually double the recipe as it freezes so well, and is such a great go-to meal to take out of the freezer on a weeknight. Serve over rice with a nice crisp salad.
Curried Home Style Tomato Chicken
Ingredients
Curry marinade
- 2 tbsp curry powder
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1/3 cup lemon juice or juice of one lemon
- 2 dashes hot sauce
- salt & pepper to taste
- 4 chicken thighs
- 4 chicken drumsticks
Preparing chicken
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 large white onion finely sliced
- 1 can diced tomatoes drained
Instructions
Preparing curry marinade
- Combine curry, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, juice lemon, salt, pepper and hot sauce in a large bowl.
- Trim any excess fat off of the chicken and discard. Toss chicken thighs and drumsticks into the bowl with marinade and toss to coat it evenly. Transfer chicken to zip lock bag and place in the fridge to marinate for at least 3 hours or overnight.
Preparing chicken for baking
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Add oil and brown sugar to a large frypan and bring to medium heat for about 5 minutes. Continue to stir together until the sugar has melted.
- Add the chicken pieces in batches to frypan and brown on both sides until the pieces are a nice golden brown. Transfer chicken pieces as they are ready to a large casserole dish and set aside.
- Keep the brown bits and any remaining oil mixture in the pan, and toss in any remaining marinade. Add in onion slices and stir to coat with marinade mixture.
- Continue cooking onions on medium heat by stirring until they are soft and transparent. About 10 to 15 minutes.
- Add in diced tomatoes and stir to combine with onions. Pour tomato mixture over chicken and cover with foil.
- Bake until bubbling for 60 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let sit for about 10 minutes and serve over rice.
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