Chicken saag (Chicken with spinach curry)

Chicken saag
(Chicken with spinach curry)

Chicken saag (Chicken curry with spinach) is one of the delicious north Indian traditional dishes. It is an amazing combination of chicken and spinach. When chicken and spinach cooked together with onion, garlic and tomatoes it makes an awesome main meal dish. It provides protein and vegetable into one dish.

Chicken is well-liked all-over India, and every reign has different style of cooking. Chicken is cooked with different combination of vegetables. Chicken saag is a wonderful blend of chicken curry and spinach. Serve this tasty dish with Naan, chapattis and rice.

Ingredient:

1 10 Oz frozen chopped Spinach pack or 2 pounds fresh chopped spinach
1 Pound boneless Chicken thighs or Chicken breast
2  Medium Onions
1    Tablespoon minced garlic
2    Medium size ripe tomato or 2 tablespoons tomato sauce.
1    Medium green chili - chopped
2    Tablespoons plain yogurt (optional)
1    Tablespoon fresh grated ginger
2    Teaspoons coriander powder
½   Teaspoon red chili powder
½   Teaspoon turmeric powder
½   Teaspoon garam masala or to your taste
2     Small bay leaves
3    Tablespoons vegetable oil
1    Tablespoon melted butter or Ghee
1 Teaspoon salt or to your taste
2    Tablespoons chopped coriander leaves

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Onions, Tomatoes, Ginger. Garlic, Green chili, Bay leaves & coriander leaves

Boneless Chicken thighs

Frozen thawed chopped spinach

Or, Fresh chopped Spinach

Coriander powder

Garam masala

Ginger- grated

Butter-melted

Red chili powder

Bay leaves

Green chili-chopped

Coriander leaves

Turmeric powder

Salt

Yogurt

Oil

Directions:

1. Thaw the frozen spinach. If using fresh spinach then wash and chop the
     spinach. (I have cooked frozen chopped Spinach)

2. Wash chicken. (If you do not want to wash the chicken then skip this step)

3. Trim away excess fat and cut into one-inch pieces and place it in a bowl.
  (I cooked boneless thighs because thigh meat stays soft after cooking and
breast meat becomes little hard. I also think it is easier to cut the chicken
with scissor then knife.)

Wash Chicken well

Trim the fat & cut the chicken into pieces

4. Use a food chopper or blender to mince the onions and garlic. Mixture should
be coarse.

In a chopper add onion and garlic

Minced Onion and garlic

5. On high heat add oil in a nonstick frying pan or heavy bottom stainless
    steel pan. Add minced onion and garlic and sauté, while periodically stirring.
    Onions will have a lot of water so for the first few minutes keep the heat
    high so that all the onion water evaporates quickly.

In a pan add oil, minced & Garlic

Mix onion with oil and fry

6. While onion mixture cooks chop tomatoes and add them into the same food
chopper or blender and puree.

In the chopper add chopped tomatoes

Puree tomatoes

7. Once all the water evaporated from the onions reduce the heat to medium and
fry or 8 to 10 minutes or until onions become light brown.

Onion become light brown

8. Add coriander powder, red chili powder, turmeric powder and mix with fried
onions and fry for few seconds

Add Coriander powder, Red chili powder & Turmeric powder

Mix spices with fried Onions

9. Add tomato puree or tomato sauce and mix with fried onion and spices.

Add tomato puree

Mix tomato puree with fried onions & spices

10. Add yogurt, mix everything together. With the tomatoes and yogurt onion
masala becomes watery, turn the heat to high for 2 to 3 minutes, so that water
evaporates quickly and then turn the heat down.

Add Yogurt

Mix yogurt well with onion masala

Yogurt and tomato puree is mixed well

11. Let the onion masala cook. Frequently keep stirring the onion masala, once
all the water evaporated and you see the oil in the pan that means onion masala
is done.

Let the onion masala cook

Onion masala is ready

12. Now add thawed or chopped spinach and mix with onion masala.

Add spinach in onion masala

Mix spinach well with onion masala

13. Add salt and bay leaves and mix.

Add salt and Bay leaves

Mix salt well

14. Add 1 cup of water mix them together.

Add Water

Mix water with spinach and onion masala

15. Cover the pan and cook on medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes or until spinach
change its green color to yellowish green.

16. While cooking stir periodically so that onion masala mix with spinach all the
time.

Cover the pan and cook

Chicken pieces

17. Spinach is cooked and it became yellowish green.

Spinach is cooked

18. Now add Chicken pieces add more water if required, cover the pan and cook
for 10 minutes. (Chicken does not take long to cook and you do not
want to over cook the chicken),

Add chicken pieces

Mix chicken well with the spinach

Cover the pan and cook

19. Chicken is cooked.

Chicken with spinach is cooked

20. Check if chicken is cooked.

Check if chicken is cooked

21. Add grated ginger and chopped green chilies and mix.

Add grated ginger and chopped green chilies

22. Sprinkle garam masala and mix with the chicken and spinach and cook for
another 5 to 8 minutes. While cooking keep string periodically

Add garam masala and mix

22.  Once chicken spinach is cooked and you have desired consistency add
      1 tablespoon melted butter or ghee, mix and fry for 5 minutes, to give the
       taste. Spinach and chicken should not be too watery it should have thick
       consistency.

23. Once you have the desired taste and consistency turn the stove off

24.  When ready to serve remove bay leaves, and transfer the curry in a serving
       dish and garnish with coriander leaves.

Add melted butter

Chicken with spinach curry is ready

Chicken with spinach curry (Chicken Saag)

Tips:

1. You can adjust the amount of Chicken and Spinach according to your taste or
preference.

2. One pound of fresh spinach will yield 10-12 cups of torn leaves, which will cook down to about 1 cup. One package (10 ounces) of frozen spinach leaves yields about 1-1/2 cups after cooking. Therefore, you can substitute 1 package (10 ounces) frozen spinach leaves for 1-1/2 pounds of fresh spinach.

3. I use Red Kashmiri chili powder (Deggi Mirch) which is very mild and give
nice color to dish without much heat.

Please take the time to let me know what you think about my recipe. Your comments would be helpful to me to improve the recipe.

Thank you

Geeta Seth

Other recipes:

Chicken keema with spinach                        Spinach with mushroom

Beef keema with spinach                              Spinach with paneer (palak paneer)

Beef with spinach curry                               Spinach with aloo (Aloo palak )

Boiled white rice                                          Chapatti (Pulkha or roti)