Air Fryer Tandoori Chicken gets plenty of flavor from the vibrant tandoori spices, fenugreek, fresh ginger, and garlic in this healthy recipe. Every bite of chicken tandoori is tender and flavor-packed, making this a crowd-pleasing favorite. [Can be made in an air fryer, oven, or grill].
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Serve this chicken tandoori with roasted cauliflower or roasted potatoes.
Tandoori chicken is a very popular Indian spiced chicken dish, especially in Indian restaurants. Chicken is marinated in yogurt flavored with tandoori seasoning, fenugreek, ginger, and garlic.
In authentic chicken tandoori recipes, marinated chicken is grilled at high heat in a clay oven called a tandoor. I’ve found that the high temperature air circulating in the closed environment of the air fryer is a pretty good substitute for a tandoor!
Air fryer chicken tandoori is traditionally made with bone in chicken pieces such as chicken thighs or chicken legs. I make it with bone-in or boneless chicken. They both taste great.
I think you’ll agree that is the best tandoori chicken recipe! I’ve been making it for over 25 years and I get regular requests for the recipe.
I used to either grill or bake the chicken, but lately, I love making tandoori chicken in the air fryer.
The chicken is marinated in a yogurt marinade with vibrant flavor and that makes this tandoori chicken air fryer recipe a real crowd-pleaser. If you have a chance to leave the chicken in the marinade for 4 to 6 hours, I highly recommend it.
➡ If you’re looking for other grilling recipes, try Jamaican jerk chicken, peri peri chicken, or Korean gochujang chicken.
Ingredients and Tips
🧂Tandoori Chicken Ingredients
More details in the recipe card at the bottom of this post
💡 Ingredient and Recipe Tips
🍗 Cuts of Chicken: Cooking times vary by chicken cut and air fryer model. Every air fryer is different, so adjust times and temperatures accordingly. Always use a digital thermometer to check internal temperature in the thickest part of the chicken:
- Boneless Thighs: 12-14 minutes at 380°F. Optimal flavor at 180°F.
- Bone-in Legs/Thighs: 18-20 minutes at 380°F. Bone-in is more flavorful and harder to overcook. Make slashes to help the marinade penetrate.
- Chicken Breast: 13-15 minutes at 380°F. They’re prone to overcooking. Pound to an even thickness if pieces are too thick. Bone-in breasts may need 7-10 minutes longer.
🌶️ Tandoori Spice: I prefer Shan Tandoori Masala, but Shan Chicken Tikka mix works too. Or make your own:
- 1½ teaspoon Kashmiri chili powder
- ½ teaspoon black pepper powder
- 1 teaspoon garam masala powder
- ½ teaspoon cumin powder
🎨 Color Tip: I prefer to skip the artificial red food coloring used in restaurants. Use paprika or more Kashmiri chili powder for natural color instead.
🥛 Yogurt: Use thick whole-milk plain yogurt. Another option is to use Greek yogurt or regular yogurt that’s been strained for about an hour.
🍬 Brown Sugar: My mother-in-law adds a small amount of sugar to balance the marinade, and I love this tip. It’s optional.
🌿 Fenugreek: Known as methi in Hindi, with a flavor between celery and maple. Use dried fenugreek leaves available at Indian grocery stores or online. They can be omitted if unavailable. Don’t use fenugreek seeds!
🧄 Ginger and Garlic: For bold flavor and smooth texture, use a paste instead of minced. To make ginger garlic paste at home, blend equal weights of ginger and garlic in a blender with just enough oil to get the blender moving. Freeze extra paste in ice cube trays.
- Substitute ½ teaspoon each of ginger and garlic powder.
- 1 teaspoon ginger paste = 1 teaspoon minced ginger
- 1 teaspoon garlic paste = 1 large garlic clove
❓ FAQS
Traditionally, tandoori chicken is made with bone-in pieces of chicken thighs and drumsticks (although I make it with bone-in or boneless). Chicken tikka is made with boneless chicken cut into cubes and cooked on a skewer. The spices are about the same for both.
For best results, it’s good to spray the air fryer and the chicken with some oil before air frying. If you want to reduce the quantity of oil in the marinade, you can do that.
Reduce the quantity of tandoori seasoning to about 1 ½ teaspoons and increase the paprika by 1 ½ teaspoons.
Yes, you can double the recipe. Cook the chicken in batches.
Instructions
👩🍳 How to Make Tandoori Chicken in Air Fryer
- Add tandoori masala, onion powder, paprika, salt, brown sugar, fenugreek leaves, ginger, garlic, yogurt, lemon juice, and oil to a small bowl.
- Stir marinade ingredients together.
- Add chicken to a large mixing bowl.
- Thoroughly coat the chicken with the marinade.
- Place chicken in the air fryer in a single layer and air fry at 380 degrees F for 13 minutes.
- Flip pieces halfway through air frying.
- Measure the internal temperature of the chicken to make sure it’s cooked through. Remove the air fryer chicken and let it rest for a few minutes before serving. Serve with sprinkled cilantro and lemon wedges.
🔥 How to Make Chicken Tandoori in the Oven
- You can double or triple the recipe on the oven.
- Make the marinade
- Let the chicken marinate for at least 30 minutes, preferably 4 to 6 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Place a rack on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet.
- Place chicken on the rack, shaking off excess marinade.
- Bake for 20 minutes, flip the chicken and brush with some marinade.
- Bake for 15 more minutes, basting with more marinade if desired.
- Turn on broil mode and broil the chicken until it is slightly charred.
See the recipe card below for detailed instructions.
Tandoori Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
Marinade
- 4 teaspoon tandoori masala spice mix (Shan brand), to taste *
- ¾ teaspoon onion powder
- 2 teaspoon paprika
- ¾ teaspoon salt or to taste
- ½ teaspoon brown sugar or to taste
- 2 teaspoon dried fenugreek leaves (methi)
- 2 teaspoon ginger paste or ½ teaspoon ginger powder
- 2 teaspoon garlic paste or ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ⅓ cup plain Greek yogurt or whole milk yogurt (whey removed)
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice or lime juice
- 2 teaspoon olive oil or vegetable oil, more for spraying
- 4 pieces boneless skinless chicken thighs **
Instructions
Marinade
- In a small bowl, stir together tandoori masala, onion powder, paprika, salt, brown sugar, fenugreek leaves, ginger, garlic, yogurt, lemon juice, and oil.
- Marinate the chicken with the spice mix in a medium sized bowl.
- Refrigerate for 2 to 4 hours, or at least 30 minutes. Overnight marination will add even more flavor.
Air Fryer Instructions
- Preheat the air fryer to 380 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes.
- Oil the air fryer basket. Shake off excess marinade and place the chicken pieces in the basket without overcrowding.
- Air fry the chicken for 13 minutes ***, flipping after 7 minutes. Baste the chicken and spray with some oil after flipping.
- Once the cook time is up, insert a digital meat thermometer in the thickest part of the chicken. The internal temperature of thighs should be about 180 degrees for optimum flavor. If the chicken hasn't reached this temperature, air fry for another couple of minutes.
- Remove the chicken and let it rest for a few minutes before serving.
Oven Instructions (Recipe can be doubled or tripled)
- Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a rack on the baking sheet. Coat the rack with oil, to prevent sticking.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Shake off excess marinade from each piece of chicken and place on the rack. Spray the chicken with some oil.
- Bake for 20 minutes, flip the chicken and brush with some of the marinade.
- Bake for 15 more minutes, basting some more if needed.
- Turn on broil mode and broil the chicken until it is slightly charred, 5 to 10 minutes.
- Check the internal temperature of chicken to make sure it's 180 degrees F. Remove chicken and rest for a few minutes before serving.
Notes
- * Shan tandoori masala is available on amazon and at Indian or South Asian grocery stores. If you can’t find it, substitute 1 ½ teaspoon Kashmiri chili powder (or to taste), ½ tsp black pepper, 1 tsp garam masala, ½ tsp cumin, and salt to taste.
- ** To use bone-in chicken thighs or legs, increase cooking time to 18 to 20 minutes. Read tips for other cuts of chicken.
- *** Cooking time may vary depending on the air fryer model. Adjust cook times based on your instruction manual recommendations.
- Nutrition information includes all the marinade. Keep in mind that some amount of the marinade will be discarded.
- See the blog post for more detailed recipe tips.
Nutrition
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I am not a certified nutritionist. I provide my best estimate of nutritional information merely as a courtesy to my readers. If you depend on nutritional information for dietary or health reasons, I suggest using your favorite online nutrition calculator to confirm the nutritional value of this recipe based on the actual ingredients that you use.
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Alice says
Had a new air fryer for Christmas and made this recipe last night and it was gorgeous. Thank you for sharing. I shall certainly browse around your blog at your other recipes. 🙂
Neena Panicker says
Alice, I’m so glad to hear that the tandoori chicken was a hit! Thank you for your comment.
Sharlene says
I’ve been making this recipe a lot lately and my family loves it. They call it red chicken. I use about half the tandoori spice mix and paprika as suggested in the tips.
Neena Panicker says
Thanks Sharlene! I’m so glad you like the air fryer tandoori chicken recipe. It’s one of my favorites too!