Meet Chilli Chicken – a spicy, Indian Chinese style stir-fry chicken. Have you ever wanted to indulge in spicy, saucy, crispy chicken? This chilli chicken recipe is the answer. The crispy texture and the spicy fusion flavors make chilli chicken a forever favorite of Indo-Chinese food lovers.
About Chilli Chicken
Chilli Chicken is a widely popular Indian-Chinese stir fry chicken mainly prepared with boneless chicken pieces.
If the name scares you off, one must reiterate that chili chicken isn’t completely all about the spices. The term chili is used to denote the presence of the other main ingredient in the dish apart from chicken – chili peppers or bell peppers.
Chilli chicken, like most other Indo-Chinese dishes, is done in a wok. Tender pieces of boneless chicken are first deep-fried and then doused in a thick glaze that coats them.
There are two versions of the dish – dry and gravy. The first one is a saucy stir fry, whereas the latter, comes with gravy to accompany the side dishes like noodles or rice.
It’s indulgent, full of flavors, and definitely a true chicken lover’s delight.
To make a vegetarian version of the dish, you can use paneer (cottage cheese) or mushroom. Like chilli paneer or chilli mushroom.
My Tried & True Tips
Chicken: Use bite-size pieces of skinless, boneless chicken. One can use bone-in chicken if preferred but that is not an ideal meat choice for chilli chicken.
Thigh meat is perfect for making the dish – as it is juicy and fibrous.
You can use chicken breasts as well. But make sure to cut the chicken into bite-size even pieces, and marinate them.
Marinade: The marination of 2 – 3 hours makes the chicken pieces juicy and flavorsome from inside. I use a mix of – cornflour, all-purpose flour, salt, pepper, soy sauce, and egg. Egg works as a binding agent, helps the marinade adhere to the chicken, and gives it a crisp exterior.
Frying: Fry chicken over medium heat rather than high heat to allow even cooking from inside, crispy texture, and avoid burning. I prefer using a flavorless oil to fry the chicken. So that the aroma or taste of oil does not overpower the chicken.
Sauce/Glaze: The garlic, ginger, peppers, and sauces together create a finger-licking glaze for the fried chicken. The cornstarch provides a thick texture and stickiness to the sauce.
Watch Chilli Chicken Recipe Video
Serving Suggestion
Chilli Chicken Dry comes together pretty quickly in a wok and can be served as a party snack or finger food.
To make a complete meal, serve chilli chicken with fried rice or chili garlic noodles.
It is guaranteed to be perfect for nights when you crave Chinese takeout for dinner.
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Dry Chilli Chicken Recipe
- Stir Fry Pan
Ingredients
Ingredients For Marinade:
- 500 gram boneless chicken pieces
- ¼ Cup cornflour (cornstarch)
- ¼ Cup all-purpose flour (maida)
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
- 1 egg
Other Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon chopped ginger
- 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
- 1 Cup diced onion
- 1 Cup diced capsicum
- 1 green chili, chopped
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 tablespoon red chili sauce
- ¼ Cup cornflour (cornstarch)
- 1 Cup water
- Oil for deep frying + for cooking
- Salt to taste
Ingredients For Garnish:
- 1 tablespoon white sesame seeds
- 1 tablespoon spring onion greens
Instructions
Marinate Chicken:
- To marinate the chicken first clean, wash and pat dry chicken pieces.
- Combine all the marinade ingredients along with chicken pieces. Rub marinade over the chicken pieces to coat each piece evenly with the marinade. Cover the bowl with a cling foil and keep in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
Fry Marinated Chicken:
- Heat oil in a frying pan over medium flame. Shallow or deep-fry marinated chicken pieces in small batches till crisp and golden from outside. Drain fried chicken in a plate lined with absorbent paper.
Prepare Sauce:
- Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in wok, throw in chopped ginger, garlic, green chili, and diced onion. Stir for a minute but do not brown the onion or garlic.
- Add capsicum, vinegar, sauces and salt. Sauté for 2 – 3 minutes over high heat.
- Combine cornflour with water and add to the pan. Mix nicely and simmer till sauce thickens.
- Add the fried chicken pieces and mix nicely.
- Sprinkle sesame seeds and spring onion greens. Simmer chicken over low heat for 2 – 3 minutes. Turn off the heat.
- Garnish with spring onion greens and serve hot with fried rice or garlic noodles.
Recipe Notes:
- Always arrange fried chicken on a metal sieve or colander for the excess oil to drip away.
- If you are planning to make chili chicken gravy, add more water, and double the amount of cornstarch.
- Store the leftover in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 1 – 2 days. Reheat in a microwave or on a stovetop in a pan.
Indrani says
Honey and spicy… my mouth is watering just thinking of it.
Great pics.
Mobasir hassan says
Excellent recipe and you described everything so nicely. Thank you for that. It really helped me to make this recipe. Looking forward for more stir fry recipes.
Hina Gujral says
Thank you so much for such positive feedback. Will surely share more stir fry recipes.
Manpreet Kaur says
No honey in “honey chilli chicken”
Hina Gujral says
only the recipe URL says it’s honey chilli chicken because we built it long back. The recipe is about chili chicken. And there is no honey in chili chicken.
Kaushal Mahajan says
Nice.
Through trial and error I have realized that double frying the chicken makes it perfect (for me). First the shallow fry till the chicken is done and then a quick 30 seconds flash fry. Doing this renders the chicken crunchy. I am currently experimenting with the relative time intervals between the first shallow fry and the subsequent flash fry to see if it makes a difference.
Also, I add the fried chicken to the sauce in the wok just after switching the heat off (have tried it both ways, the crunch is better if the chicken pakoras are just coated by tossing them in the rapidly cooling sauce after the flame is turned off).
What I can never get (when I recall the taste memories from my childhood) is the slightly burnt, charred, caramelized umami taste envelope on the the fried chicken pieces (which had bones then). Haven’t found it yet in recent times – not in any five star nor restaurant nor modern roadside vendors.
And apropos the previous comment about honey, I do add a bit of sugar to the CC wok to balance out things. Many people do. And a pinch of monosodium glutamate as well (which, as has recently been shown, is not poison and we need all the umaminess that we can get!)
Hina Gujral says
Recipes are all about adaptation. Great that you are doing lot of trials to get the perfect recipe.
barbie says
Hello Mam,
Thank u so much for sharing this recipe. It came out to be very yummy. Keep sharing more!
Hina Gujral says
thank you so much! I am so glad you like the recipe.
Sharanya Pradeep says
Hi, this recipe is delicious! Very simple, yet well-explained! My family loved it! Thank you for sharing this!
Hina Gujral says
Thank You for your feedback.
Giống chó Siba inu says
Nice read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch as I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thank you for lunch!
Hina Gujral says
Thank you for such sweet feedback. You made my day!
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