Crock Pot Chicken Vindaloo and Garlic Naan
Indian food took a long time to grow on me. It wasn’t until I had a break through with Ryan’s Chicken Tikka Masala that I started to really like it. Now, I crave the bold spices and thick sauces. This chicken vindaloo is just that, spicy but not hot, with just enough meat and vegetables, and lot and lots of thick, flavorful sauce for soaking up with rice or bread. Cooked low and slow in the crock pot, this dish has no cream or extra fat and so is thankfully low-calorie. Which means you can have an extra piece of garlic naan-an Indian flat bread, sort of like a pita-for spooning up the tomato sauce.
I added green beans to the sauce but you can omit them, or you can also add peas (which I would have if I had them), carrots, potatoes or any other vegetable you like in a curry.
Crock Pot Chicken Vindaloo
serves 4, prep 10 min, cook 5 hours, adapted from Recipezaar- 2 cups fresh green beans
- 1 lb chicken thighs or breasts
- 1 onion, diced
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp fresh ginger, minced or grated
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 cups tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
- 1 1/2 tbsp curry powder
- 2 tbsp ground cumin
- 2 tbsp ground mustard
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 tsp kosher salt (or salt to taste)
- fresh cilantro or parsley
- Layer green beans, chicken, onion, garlic, ginger, and cinnamon stick in crock pot.
- In a separate bowl, combine tomato sauce and all spices. Stir to mix well.
- Taste tomato sauce and salt as desired. Pour sauce mixture into crock pot.
- Cover crock pot and cook on low 5 hours.
- Before serving roughly chop a bunch of fresh cilantro or parsley and toss gently into crock pot.
- Garnish with more cilantro or parsley and serve with basmati rice and garlic naan.
If you want to cook this in the crock pot over a longer period (say 8 or 10 hours) I would use bone-in chicken and add a little water or chicken broth to the crock. You shouldn’t need much. The chicken and onions will make extra juices along with the tomato sauce but if you know that your crock pot tends to dry out then add some-you can always reduce the sauce a little before serving by turning to high and cooking with the lid off for 30 minutes or so.
You can use store bought flat breads to serve alongside this dish for a super easy meal, but using the crock pot to cook the chicken gives you ample time to make your naan from scratch if you want to. If you don’t want garlic bread, just omit the minced garlic from the recipe, but the garlic naan is delicious-buttery and soft and garlicky. Plan to reheat your extra naan in the oven or on the griddle, it gets gummy in the microwave.
Garlic Naan
makes 8 large flat breads, prep 15 min, rise time 1 hr 3o min, cook time 20 min, adapted from Allrecipes- 1 cup warm water
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp milk
- 1 egg, beaten
- 4 1/2 cup bread flour or all purpose flour, approximately
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- Combine warm water and yeast in a bowl and let stand until frothy.
- Stir in sugar, salt, milk and egg until thoroughly combined.
- Begin folding in flour 1 cup at a time until you have a workable ball of dough that isn’t too sticky.
- Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic.
- Place dough in an oiled bowl, turn to coat, cover with a damp cloth and set someplace warm to rise for 1 hour.
- Once dough has risen, punch down and knead in minced garlic. Alternately you can leave out the garlic for regular naan.
- Form dough into 8 balls. set out on an oiled cookie sheet to rise for 30 minutes. Cover with a damp cloth.
- While dough is rising heat a grill pan, griddle, or heavy skillet to medium high heat.
- Roll out one ball into a thin circle about the size of a pancake or the size you want your bread to be.
- Brush the surface or the grill with oil and place the dough circle on the hot surface.
- Cook several minutes or until brown, brush the uncooked side with melted butter and flip over to cook.
- Brush the cooked side with butter and once browned underneath, remove to a plate and keep warm in a warm oven or under a dish towel.
- Repeat with all dough balls: roll out, grill one side, brush with butter, flip, brush with butter, remove.
- Serve warm, sprinkled with chopped parsley or cilantro if desired.
January 17th, 2010 at 8:54 am
That’s such a mouth-watering dish. I have to cook this soon for dinner. My family will surely like this.
January 17th, 2010 at 9:46 am
I am from Pakistan and our food is similar to India’s cuisine. For me, it is sooo daunting to make naan, maybe because it is usually something we get from a restaurant as we don’t have tandoors in our kitchens. But yours looks divine! Will be checking back often 🙂
January 17th, 2010 at 10:24 am
This turned out beautiful. I need to get a crock pot.
January 17th, 2010 at 11:40 am
I love vindaloo and naan! I’ve never made my own naan – it’s always seemed intimidating – but you make me want to try. Garlic naan is my favorite too.
January 17th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
I’ve saved this recipe. It looks absolutely delicious. I love the spices you’re using. I wonder if you could make naan with whole wheat pastry flour?
You could sub a portion of the flour for WW pastry flour. If you do, I would use the bread flour for the rest so you have the extra gluten. -Katie
January 18th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
I will definitely put this on my list of things to make!!
January 18th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Wow, this looks seriously amazing. And what perfect timing–I was just thinking that it’s time to branch out from the slow cooker Masoor dahl I’ve become addicted to this winter. Thanks for posting!
January 18th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
This sounds amazing and I love that it can be prepared in the slow cooker – I can maybe make it during the week!
January 19th, 2010 at 6:32 am
ymmy looking good going to try it
January 19th, 2010 at 6:58 am
looks great love to try it
January 19th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Just wanted to say that we made this tonight and 3 of the 4 of us loved it! Mr. Pickypants wanted cheesy tacos instead. He’s not a fan of much of anything. But the rest of us loved it, and we’ll be making it again!
January 20th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Sounds like a perfect rainy winter day meal! Though I admit, I’ll buy some of the frozen naan from Trader Joes…a good substitute if one doesn’t have time to make it from scratch (or one hasn’t concurred baking with yeast yet).
January 20th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Hi – after seeing this recipe I went out and bought a bottleof Vindaloo Sauce…..what should I eliminate in this recipe in lieu of this sauce? I love the look of this and I am going to try it this weekend:)
January 21st, 2010 at 9:35 am
This is calling my name! I love Indian food, and this looks divine…love the crock pot, too 🙂 And the naan…awesome! 🙂
January 21st, 2010 at 1:35 pm
I am really unsure of Indian food…I need to try some. I’m intrigued by the spices. This really looks delicious!
January 24th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
I made this tonight and it was fabulous! I accidentally forgot to include the milk in the naan and it still came out fine (thankfully). I’ll definitely be making this again – thanks so much!
January 28th, 2010 at 5:59 am
I made the Chicken Vindalo on Tuesday and had enough for lunch again yesterday. Very good…However I think I should have used more pepper. Here’s a tip: If you have Vindaloo Paste just add a tablespoon to the recipe.
February 25th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
I’ve had the recipe for over a month-found it on foodgawker.com-and I love Chicken Vindaloo so I’ve been looking forward to trying this. Some of the spices I used were old,so next time I make this dish I’ll use new so it will be more flavorful (my fault not the recipe!). This time around I used carrots and added more cayanne pepper to spice it up a bit. After cooking for five hours the sauce was still thin, so I added corn starch and cooked it on high uncovered to thicken up the sauce. Worked perfectly-the sauce was the perfect consistency. Served it over brown basmati rice. My husband said this recipe is a keeper and I agree. I love that this is low fat and didn’t require coconut milk or other high calorie ingrediencts. Thanks Katie for enticing me to drag my crock pot out of the closet.
May 25th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Trader Joe’s has ruined Indian food for my bf. One day we were there and I picked up the Chicken Tikka Masala. He’d never tried it before because he ‘doesn’t like Indian food’ but I convinced him to try it. Needless to say, he LOVED it and, since then, every time we go I’m forced to buy SIX boxes of it. Do you know how expensive that is? So tonight, I decided he should ‘branch out.’ I made this and knew after he’d taken the first bite that I’d made a mistake. Turns out he was right. He doesn’t like Indian food, he just LOVES Trader Joe’s Chicken Tikka Masala. Sigh. On the other hand, I thought it was just fine. Thanks for the recipe!
February 27th, 2011 at 6:03 am
[…] recipes and narrowed it down to these four: Slow Cooker Chicken Vindaloo from The Perfect Pantry Crockpot Chicken Vindaloo from Chaos in the Kitchen Crockpot Chicken Vindaloo from Kat’s Kitchen Place Chicken Vindaloo […]
January 25th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
not to be a total purist, but vindaloo generally involves quite a bit of heat…1/4 tsp of cayenne isn’t nearly enough….this seems like an americanized recipe, so i would highly recommend using some slight modifications, and adding either some sort of chili paste or peppers, because this is supposed to be amongst the hottest of the hot…if you’re fortunate enough to have an indian market, i highly recommend ample green chiles and using ghee to thicken the sauce …
spent a month living in India and can tell you first hand this isnt really “authentic” vindaloo but for what its worth it does look good….
August 6th, 2012 at 6:52 pm
[…] Sunday I tried a new recipe for crockpot Chicken Vindaloo, which I had a month or so ago at Cafe Taj and loved. I tweaked the recipe a little bit by leaving […]