The trick to this Hairy Bikers chicken balti recipe is blitzing the onion base smooth before the chicken goes anywhere near the pan. That one step turns soft onions, garlic, ginger, and curry paste into a proper sauce that coats every piece evenly.
The Great Curries cookbook calls this “Very Good Balti Chicken” and says “balti has become the Brummies’ own and is the quickest of all curries.” Balti means bucket in Urdu, and it is the name of the two-handled pan used for cooking it. Any frying pan with a lid works fine though.
A full bag of baby spinach wilts through at the end, so this is already a chicken balti with spinach without changing anything. The whole thing serves 4 at around 330 kcal and is done in about 35 minutes.
Hairy Bikers Chicken Balti Recipe
Description
Onions, garlic, and ginger softened under a lid then blitzed smooth with curry paste and tomato purée to make the sauce base. Chicken chunks simmer in it with quartered tomatoes before baby spinach wilts through at the end.
Ingredients
For the sauce base
For the curry
Instructions
- Soften the onion base: Melt the butter with 1 tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan with a lid. Add the onions, garlic, and ginger, then cover and cook on a low heat for 15 minutes until very soft. Stir now and then.
- Colour and spice: Take the lid off and turn up the heat. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring all the time, until well coloured. Add the curry paste and cook for 3 more minutes, then take off the heat and stir in the tomato purée.
- Blitz smooth: Use a stick blender to blitz until as smooth as you can get it. Scrape into a bowl and set aside. This base keeps in the fridge for up to 3 days.
- Fry the chicken: Cut each breast into 7 or 8 pieces. Put the pan back on a medium heat, add the last tablespoon of oil, and fry the chicken for 3 minutes, turning often, until lightly coloured.
- Simmer: Add all the blitzed sauce, the water, salt, sugar, and tomatoes. Bring to a simmer and cook for 4 minutes.
- Add spinach and serve: Drop the spinach in a few handfuls at a time, letting each batch wilt before adding the next. Cook for 1 more minute, then serve with warm naan or rice.
FAQs
Why does blitzing the sauce make such a difference?
Because chunky onions just float in the liquid and leave half the chicken bare. A smooth sauce wraps around every piece and carries the ginger, garlic, and curry paste with it, so every bite tastes the same.
This is how restaurant baltis get that silky texture. The lamb dhansak in the same book uses the exact same blitzed onion base. The smooth sauce holds red lentils together there just like it holds spinach here.
Can I make the sauce base ahead of time?
Yes, and this is probably the best thing about the recipe. The Great Curries cookbook says you can keep the blitzed base covered in the fridge for up to 3 days, so the actual cooking on the night takes about 8 minutes.
Fry the chicken, tip in the cold sauce with the water and tomatoes, simmer 4 minutes, wilt the spinach, done. The base freezes well too, so you could batch it up and have balti sauce ready whenever you fancy one.
Why is spinach part of the original recipe?
A lot of people search for “chicken balti with spinach” as though it is a separate dish, but in this Great Curries version the spinach is already built in. A full 200 to 225g bag of baby spinach goes in at the very end and wilts down in about a minute.
It adds colour and a fresh green taste that cuts through the curry paste. The spinach and ricotta lasagne on this site uses 500g of frozen spinach baked with ricotta and nutmeg. Both recipes show how much spinach shrinks once heat hits it.
Is a chicken balti the same as a chicken handi?
Close, but not the same. The Everyday Winners cookbook has a “Chicken Handi” and calls it “a sort of Pakistani version of a balti” with a tomato and yoghurt base like tikka masala. This balti skips yoghurt entirely after the initial knob of butter, so it is lighter.
Both are quick one-pot chicken curries, and if you have tried the handi you will spot the family resemblance. The difference is where the richness comes from: yoghurt and cream in the handi, blitzed onions and curry paste in the balti.
What if I want it hotter?
The headnote gives two options: add an extra spoonful of curry paste at step 2, or fry a chopped red chilli with the garlic and ginger at the start. The recipe is mild as written because medium paste, spinach, and tomatoes all cool the heat down.
For something that genuinely burns, the lamb vindaloo on this site marinates lamb in red wine vinegar and red chillies overnight. That one sits at the opposite end of the heat scale, so trying both shows just how wide the range of curry goes.
