Chicken Vindaloo
A recipe for the popular spicy Indian dish, this spicy, tangy chicken vindaloo curry is a quick and easy kitchen staple. My version is wonderfully fiery, though you can easily adjust the heat and spice to your preference.
If you are a spicy food lover like I am, you need to give your taste buds a treat and try this amazing Chicken Vindaloo Recipe. It has everything a fiery food lover could want – Flavor, Heat, Spiciness, Pure Satisfaction.
It is most definitely one of my favorite recipes and it is super eat to whip together in the kitchen with very little effort and cooking time.
That’s a HUGE PLUS for a slow cook like me!
What is Vindaloo?
“Vindaloo” is a popular Indian curry dish that calls for meat to be marinated in a highly flavorful spicy mixture with vinegar, then quickly cooked up when you’re ready to eat.
You can easily prepare it with several different meats – pork, goat, beef, even potato for a vegetarian version. I love it with chicken, particularly chicken thighs, which I’ve included here for this recipe.
How to Make Chicken Vindaloo (Recipe) – The Marinade
The vindaloo marinade is the most important part of this dish, as it imparts an immense amount of flavor that all of us spicy food lovers crave.
Vinegar is a MUST, as is garlic. From there, we’re adding in a number of pungent spices to make this amazing, including paprika, ginger, coriander, turmeric, mustard powder, cumin, cinnamon, and a healthy dose of spicy red chili flakes.
Don’t forget the salt and black pepper to taste.
Try this Homemade Vindaloo Seasoning Blend.
Upping the Heat and Spice Factor
For the wild chiliheads like ME, you can use ghost pepper chili flakes like I did. If ghost peppers are too hot for you, use the typical red chili flakes or cayenne pepper that you find in the store, which are perfectly GREAT for this recipe.
You’ll definitely get plenty of heat with them, and I want this dish to please your personal palate, not mine! So go with a heat level you’re comfortable with.
You can also include a bit of sugar if you’d like, either white or brown sugar. I didn’t use them this time.
Whisk all of the seasonings together with the vinegar, then pour it over the skinless chicken in a bowl. Or, use a plastic bag that you can seal. This is your curry paste. The chicken should be cut into bite sized pieces.
Refrigerate the chicken for at least 1 hour, though you’ll get better results if you let it marinate overnight.
More marinade time = more flavor.
I like to whip this recipe together the night before and let it sit in the refrigerator until dinner time the next evening. It makes for a super quick and easy meal, though yeah, it does require a little bit of forethought.
How to Make Chicken Vindaloo (Recipe) – The Method
Making authentic Chicken Vindaloo is simple. First, heat oil in a large skillet to medium high heat.
Next, cook down your onion and chili pepper a few minutes to soften them up. I used spicy serrano peppers here, though you can use milder peppers for a version with less heat.
Next, add the chicken (along with the marinade) and stir. Cook it for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Next, add in the tomato paste and cook stirring a bit, along with about 1/2 cup of water or chicken broth to form a sauce. Fresh diced tomatoes are also a nice addition here.
Let the whole pan simmer about 20 minutes, until the chicken cooks through and the flavors develop. You can let it simmer longer if you’d like.
If the sauce becomes too thick, just stir in a bit more water or broth until it reaches the consistency you prefer. It will thicken in the pan. It should be the consistency of a good gravy.
BOOM! DONE! Better than any Indian restaurant. It’s so deliciously fragrant. I love it. Such a great recipe. Indian food is filled with so much amazing spice and flavor.
For Serving
Serve it up over rice and garnish with some fresh herbs and extra spicy chili flakes. Basmati rice is a nice choice, as is a side of naan bread. Make it rain, my friends!
Spice this baby up!
If it gets TOO spicy, serve it alongside this Traditional Indian Raita recipe, which is made from spiced yogurt. It has a nice cooling effect.
It really is an amazing dish. Give it a try and let me know how you like this curry recipe. How spicy did you make yours?
Send pics! I’d love to see them. Till next time!!! — Mike H.
Try Some of My Popular Curry Dish Recipes
- Lamb Vindaloo
- Ghost Pepper Chicken Curry
- Spicy Thai Curry Chicken Soup
- Homemade Vindaloo Curry Powder
- Khao Soi – Northern Thai Coconut Curry Soup
- Chicken Korma
Try Some of My Other Popular Chicken Dishes
- Grilled Harissa Chicken Legs
- Korean Chicken
- Dragon Chicken
- Chicken Enchiladas Verdes with Cheese
- Quick and Easy Chipotle Chicken
- The Juiciest Shredded Chicken
If you try this recipe, please let us know! Leave a comment, rate it and tag a photo #ChiliPepperMadness on Instagram so we can take a look. I always love to see all of your spicy inspirations.
A recipe for the popular spicy Indian dish, this spicy, tangy curry is a quick and easy kitchen staple. My version is wonderfully fiery, though you can easily adjust the heat and spice to your preference.
- 2 pounds chicken thighs chopped
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 yellow onion chopped
- 2 serrano peppers chopped (or use Indian peppers if you can obtain them)
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- Salt and pepper to taste
- ½ cup white vinegar
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoon spicy red chili flakes I used ghost pepper flakes for an EXTRA kick
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- 1 teaspoon coriander
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon mustard powder
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
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Add the chicken to a large bowl.
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Mix your marinade by whisking together the vinegar and all of the seasonings. Pour it over the chicken and rub it into the meat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Longer is better, such as overnight.
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Heat a large pan to medium heat and add the olive oil. Add the onion and peppers and cook about 4-5 minutes, until they soften up.
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Add the chicken along with the marinade and cook another 5 minutes to nicely brown up the pieces.
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Add the tomato paste and cook another minute, stirring.
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Add ½ cup of water (or chicken broth for extra flavor) and stir until the mixture thins out and becomes a sauce. You can add more water if needed. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.
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Serve as is or over rice with fresh herbs and sprinkled chili flakes. Make it rain!
NOTES: This is definitely a hot and spicy dish. Some would say very hot, though you can dial back the heat by using milder chilies and going easy on the red chili flakes. If you're looking for an even HOTTER version, go with habanero peppers, or fiery ghost peppers, which will REALLY heat things up.
Gluten Free.
This recipe is gluten free.
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So I cooked this following your recipe almost exactly, which I’m not usually good at doing! Apart from adding a pinch of sugar ,and I must agree with the other comments on this page it WAS amazing. I usually like a madras heat kinda curry but this is definitely going on the regular menu in our house ….. happy😊
Thanks so much, Mark and Claire! Super happy you enjoyed it! This is one of my wife’s favorites. She requests it all the time. I have to keep a big batch of Vindaloo Curry Powder in my cupboard just for her. =)
This was the best Indian recipe I’ve ever cooked! I wish I had a pic to send you but we devoured it instantly! I have to say I toned it down quite a lot because the Greek palate is not accustomed to such heat levels. I used dried Cascabel peppers, which I absolutely adore, instead of Serrano and hardly any chili flakes. Next time I’ll use more chili to train myself and the family. Thanks a lot for this one!
Outstanding, Roula! I’m super happy you enjoyed it. Isn’t it great that you can adjust the recipe to your preferred heat level? Thanks for sharing!!
Very good, I only used a prepared vindaloo spice no red chili flakes or fresh hot peppers. My kids love curry and somewhat spicy food so I wanted to see if it would be a tolerable spice level for them. It was not, though my 8 year old enjoyed the taste it was too spicy. But my husbà nd and I really enjoyed it. I added potatoes and a ton of cilantro. I also used more chicken broth as I like my curries very saucy. Easy and will make again!
Excellent, Alison! So happy you enjoyed it! Yes, this one can definitely get spicy.
This is a fantastic recipe! I use it as a base for most Curry’s i make, balanced but with a real kick.
I tend to mix up the bulk ingredients, changing out half the weight of the chicken for potatoes/mushrooms or cauliflower.
Great stuff!
Thanks, Joe! I love the addition of the veggies. Quite delicious!
How many tsp of the pre-made vindaloo spice mix would you use for the marinade?
I would use 4-6 teaspoons or more, depending on how pronounced the flavor you are looking for. Let me know how it turns out for you. Enjoy!
Hi what type of mustard powder do you use ??
Melanie, I used yellow mustard powder for this recipe.
I live in Costa Rica. I used a Panamanian pepper (only one) to scale back the heat a bit for my wife and daughter. That’s about 1/2 of the heat 2 Serranos would give you (Panamanian chilies have about 2-3 times the heat of a jalapeño or about the heat of one serrano …and have a nice flavor) …and I ended up adding some more heat with some sriracha sauce late in the game …and, a bit of (coconut) sugar, and some diced tomatoes (as suggested in the intro to the recipe.) Otherwise …with the exception of a bit more cooking time …I closely followed the recipe.
All 3 of us had second helpings! And, this “chicken vindaloo” recipes is on our “make again” list. It’s an adventure in taste we will return to again.
5 STARS. Thanks for sharing!!!
We all started off eating a bit confused …unsure of what this was. But …the more we ate the more we liked it! And all 3 of use had seconds
That’s GREAT, Robert! I’m glad you took a leap and found a new recipe for the house! I hope it makes it into your regular rotation. Enjoy!
Where are the potatoes?
Todd, you can include potatoes in the recipe. I discuss that in the post. Potatoes are AWESOME here!
Great recipe, great flavor! I used skinless, boneless chicken breasts, a little less flavor than thighs but I’m too lazy to deal with bones! Marinade overnight for the best infusion and like many Indian / spicy foods tastes even better the next day after cooking. Fantastic!
Personally I would always use fresh ginger, powered insn’t really an ideal substitute. Can’t wait to make this again when I will sub half the hot chili flakes with ghost pepper flakes – hmm spicy!
Outstanding, Scott! Thanks! Super happy you enjoyed it!
Hi Michael, I’m going to make this today. Do you mean fresh root ginger or ground ginger? Thanks 🙂
I used dried ginger, Gill, but you can use fresh. I hope you like it!
The description of the recipe says tangy curry… There isn’t any curry listed?? did you forget something?
Terrie, the list of spices used in the recipes make up a homemade curry blend, essentially. No need to buy a pre-mixed curry in this recipe.
When you say “Add the chicken”, do you include the marinade or do you take the chicken out of the marinade [And toss all that good marinade flavour?]
Mike, add the marinade with the chicken as well. Super delicious! Enjoy.
What a great-looking dish! I am a big lover of spice, though sadly, my husband is not. I’ll just have to make two versions of this – one spicy, one mild. Thanks for this!
You’ll have to get the man some spice! Enjoy.
This looks so good. I haven’t made this before, I’ll have to give this a try.
I hope you enjoy it! One of my favorites.
Yum! This chicken sounds absolutely wonderful with all those spices! Ghost peppers would definitely heat things up!
Ghost peppers for me for sure!
I’ll have to tone it down, but the flavors are all there. I’m so glad you included a recipe for the spice mix.
Absolutely! Vindaloo is normally quite hot, but it is very adjustable. I hope you enjoy it!
This is my favorite meal at my fave Indian restaurant, but I never knew how to make it. Thanks for the recipe!
You’re very welcome! I love this one, too.
This was delicious! I was concerned with all the spices and the vinegar and the heat but wow it was so flavorful. I followed your recipe exactly and it had the right amount of heat. I will definitely make this again and again. Thank you!
That’s GREAT, Debbie. Glad you enjoyed it!