Ever heard of Tandoori Chicken or Paneer Tikka? This is the magical marinade that flavours those dishes. Gear up for the summer season this year with the best tandoori marinade recipe for your next barbecue. This marinade recipe works wonderfully with meat, poultry, paneer and also with vegetables. Although the ingredients list seems long, once you've got that sorted, this marinade is extremely easy to put together and will add a punch of flavour to everything it's added to. This is our go to marinade recipe and is always a hit at barbecues and grill parties which are a staple in the summer here in Germany.
The base of this marinade is yoghurt and we recommend using dahi or a thick Greek style yoghurt for this. The yoghurt will not only serve as a carrier for the spices and aromatic paste but also works as a wonderful meat tenderizer. If you're marinading meat or poultry, let them sit in the marinade in the fridge overnight for maximum flavour.
So the next time you fire up the grill, ditch the BBQ sauce and pre-marinated meats and give this Tandoori Marinade recipe a go. We promise you, there will be no turning back from there! For the full desi style barbecue experience, serve your barbecued items with naan, dal makhani, mint & coriander chutney and pickled onions. Pickled onions are a must!
- 5 tbsp or 75ml yoghurt
- 1 tsp ghee or oil
- 2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
- 1 tsp sweet paprika powder*
- 1/2 tsp kashmiri chilli powder
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 2 tsp MDH tandoori masala or meat masala**
- 1 tsp kasoori methi
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp freshly crushed pepper
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1-2 tbsp chopped coriander (preferably stems)
- 2 tsp besan (or flour)
- Add the yoghurt to a medium sized bowl.
- Grate in the ginger and garlic with a fine grater. De-seed and finely chop the green chillies. Add them to the yoghurt.
Alternately, you can pound the aromatics in a mortar and pestle. - Add the oil, and all the powdered spices mentioned in the ingredients list as well as the salt, sugar, kasoori methi and besan.
- Mix well and add in the chopped coriander stems and leaves.
- Slather on to anything you're going to be barbecuing and enjoy!
*Spice level and heat - We decided to de-seed the chilles in this recipe and like to use a blend of kashmiri chilli powder and sweet paprika powder. Although sweet paprika isn't the most traditional Indian ingredient, we use it for a few reasons..1. although kashmiri chilli is considered mild, we find it's still quite spicy 2. that attractive red colour is a signature sign on tandoori dishes, and we find that using sweet paprika helps achieve this colour without the use of artificial food colouring which most restaurants use 3. the MDH tandoori masala also has a considerable amount of spice so do keep that in mind when adding other spices.
Having said that, if you'd like a fiery hot marinade by all means, leave the seeds in and use kashmiri chilli powder instead of sweet paprika.
**MDH Tandoori Masala - To make things a tad bit easier, we recommended using the MDH Tandoori Masala in this recipe (in our video we used the MDH Meat Masala since that's what we had lying around at home). This is not a sponsored suggestion. We have found that MDH is one of the most widely available spice blend brands here in Germany and is an authentic option to go for compared to spice blends you might find in your local supermarket. Shan and Everest are just as good too! However, if you don't have access to these boxed spice blends, we'd recommend using an additional teaspoon of garam masala.