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I love Indian-spiced food. When we went to India a few years ago, I learned a lot about cooking with Indian spices. One of the main things I learned is that food can be flavorful without a lot of heat added. This makes Indian cooking more attractive to kids. My kids love these Baked Curried Chicken Drumsticks.
This recipe works well with chicken breasts or thighs as well. I just prefer chicken drumsticks for some recipes. Not only is it an economical way to eat good quality meat, but it’s tender and juicy when cooked in this flavorful curry sauce.
The curry sauce for this recipe has quite a few spices in it. Don’t get intimidated. I like to combine my spices just right so it has the right combination of savory and sweet. I don’t add much heat to the sauce because the kids don’t like too much spice, but feel free to add a titch of cayenne or any other chili spice that you like. If you don’t have all of the spices needed, feel free to use a good quality curry powder instead. I would use a generous tablespoon of curry powder along with a bit of cinnamon to balance out the savory.
This recipe makes enough for about 3 to 3 and 1/2 pounds of drumsticks. That’s about 12 drumsticks. I like to go BIG when I cook so we have lots of leftover to snack on throughout the week. Who doesn’t like to save time on getting REAL food on the table? If you want to bake less chicken, you can freeze whatever you don’t use of the sauce for the next time you want to make a kick-ass curried chicken dish.
The secret to the amazing flavor of this dish is letting the chicken marinade in the curry sauce. I usually make the curry sauce in the evening and let it marinade overnight. Give it at least a few hours. A little planning goes a long way.
If you love Indian-spiced food, check out my recipe for Gobi Matar (Indian Cauliflower and Peas)
Baked Curry Chicken
- Yield: 12 drumsticks
Ingredients
- 12 chicken drumsticks
For the curry sauce
- 2 TBS coconut oil, ghee, or butter (where to get good quality fats)
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp turmeric (like this)
- 1/2 tsp garam masala (like this)
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1/8 tsp cardamom powder
- 4 TBS homemade bone broth (or water)
- 1 medium tomato, quartered
- 4 TBS full fat coconut milk (where to buy BPA and additive free coconut milk)
- 4 cloves fresh garlic
- 2 inch piece of fresh ginger
- 1 tsp celtic sea salt
- a nice handful of fresh cilantro (about a 1/4 cup)
- OPTIONAL]: 1/4 tsp of cayenne if you want to add a little heat
Instructions
- Melt fat of choice in a skillet and saute onions for 5 minutes. Add cumin seeds and continue to cook until translucent and beginning to brown.
- Add cumin powder, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, cinnamon, and cardamom to onions and saute for 2-3 minutes to bring out the flavor of the spices. If spices begin to stick, turn down heat and add a titch of fat. Remove from heat.
- Place tomato, coconut milk, , garlic, ginger, salt, and cilantro into a blender. Pour broth (or water) into skillet with onions and carefully scrape all of the onions and spices into blender as well. Puree until smooth.
- In a large bowl, pour curry sauce over chicken drumstick and mix to thoroughly coat. Allow to marinade in fridge. I usually do mine overnight but at least a couple of hours. The longer the better.
- Preheat oven to 35o’F
- Bake marinaded chicken, COVERED, for 45 minutes, stirring the chicken half way through to evenly coat with curry sauce.
- Remove cover/foil and bake another 20-30 minutes until chicken is cooked all the way through. Enjoy!
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This looks delicious! Does the skin on the drumsticks crisp up in the oven?
I wouldn’t say that the skin crisps up. This is a saucy kind of dish. The chicken is tender and juicy—- and covered in yummy sauce. 🙂
Made this dish almost to the letter a few weeks ago-and it was probably the best chicken I have ever made!!I did not use coconut oil or milk,used olive oil instead.This stuff was lick the bowl GOOD!!
★★★★★
Oh, I am so happy to hear that. My kids absolutely love this dish. They literally lick their plates clean! Thanks for the feedback! 🙂
I cooked and ate chicken curry for the first time ever the other day & thought it was pretty good-but hated the fact that I had to pan fry the chicken first so I was looking for a baked alternative. I will definitely try this and let you know how it turns out! Wonder if this can be made with a slow cooker???
I love to make chicken in the crockpot. I bet this would be awesome like that! Let me know if you try it!
Made this last night. It was nice creamy taste but was lacking enough salt. After sprinkling some more salt over it it was better. Thanks for the lovely curry recipe.