Easy Chicken Vindaloo Recipe

Chicken vindaloo is one of those dishes you likely love ordering at your favorite Indian restaurant but think must be far too complex for you to create yourself at home. In fact, want to know the hardest thing about preparing chicken vindaloo? It's just like in the song: The waiting is the hardest part. "This is really an easy recipe to make," says chef and recipe developer Ting Dalton of Cook Simply. Yes, there is some chopping and measuring and blending and sautéing, but Dalton says: "Once you put it in the Crock Pot, you can just leave it alone and get on with the rest of your day."

Hands-on work here will take you about a half hour. Add to that a marinating period of at least two hours before the cooking starts and a slow cooking time of four to eight hours, and you'll see why waiting is the name of the game. Why is the waiting so hard? As Dalton says: "The only problem is having to smell the delicious aromas as it's cooking all day long."

But there are far worse problems than that, so let's get cooking!

Not surprising here, given the cuisine, this chicken vindaloo recipe calls for a lot of spices and chilis. In fact, Dalton says: "Vindaloos are notoriously spicy, but if you can't take the heat, don't add so many chillies or the cayenne pepper."

For a classic take on the dish, you'll need skinless chicken thighs, red wine vinegar, sea salt, vegetable oil, a large potato, onions, long red chillies or birds eye chillies, garlic, fresh ginger, English mustard powder, ground cumin, ground coriander, paprika, turmeric, cayenne pepper, a cinnamon stick, and tomato paste.

Trim any fat or gristle off the chicken, then chop it into roughly bite-sized pieces. Now, put the chopped chicken pieces in a large bowl and add the red wine vinegar, two tablespoons of vegetable oil, and salt. Mix thoroughly, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and marinate the meat in the fridge for at least two hours or even overnight. And yes, it's even better overnight.

Once the chicken is done marinating, drain it in a colander and reserve the vinegar, oil, and salt marinade in a bowl or cup.

With the chicken set aside and the excess marinade reserved, add all of the spices (minus the cinnamon stick), the onions, the garlic, and the chillies into a food processor or blender, and blend them all together to form a paste. If you need to, you can add a touch of a water to help the ingredients combine and use a spatula to slide them down toward the blade (when the device is switched off, for the record).

Once that paste is ready, put it and the remaining vegetable oil in a pan and cook on medium heat for around ten minutes until it begins to darken in color.

Add the chicken and tomato paste to the pan and stir to combine with the paste you made earlier. Next, add that reserved vinegar marinade as well as a cup of water and the cinnamon stick. Give the curry a good stir.

Now, transfer all of the chicken vindaloo ingredients from the pan to a Crock Pot, cover it, and cook your dish on low heat for six to eight hours or on high heat for four hours. Low and slow is better, but it'll still be delicious if you decide to go the quicker route.

About an hour or two before the end of the cooking time (one hour for hotter, faster cooking, two for lower and slower) add the chopped potatoes and stir them into the mix thoroughly, then re-cover the slow cooker and let things keep on cooking.

Before serving your chicken vindaloo, if you think there is still too much liquid, you can pop the curry into a pot on the stove for 20 minutes or so on medium heat to thicken the sauce. This meal is traditionally (and best) served with basmati rice and naan bread and garnished with cooling yogurt and fresh coriander. And it's more than worth the wait.