Chicken Saag or Saagwala Curry
A chicken saag or saagwala curry is one of my favourite Indian dishes, and my recipe makes it really easy to make at home!
It is a recipe that is one of the ever-present dishes in the old-school British Indian curry house. Iron-rich spinach may take the top billing, but the star is the boldly flavoured spicy gravy.
Indian Chicken and Spinach Curry
Despite the fancy name, this is nothing more than a chicken and spinach curry.
This chicken saag recipe joins other British Indian restaurant favourites like garlic chilli chicken, chicken tikka masala, chicken balti and chicken Chettinad here on my site.
The sag or saagwala curry is one of those ubiquitous dishes that tends to appear on all British Indian restaurant menus.
Depending on where you are dining, it sometimes appears in a rich and bold dark green sauce that I tend to think of as palak chicken.
Other times it appears as it is here, with loads of spinach wilted into a simple curry sauce.
I adore this dish, it was published many years ago, and I occasionally re-photograph it mainly as an excuse to cook it again... but the recipe rarely changes, because you guys seem to love it as much as I do!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I cook this in advance?
I would advise against cooking this all the way through and then reheating it because spinach can become bitter when overcooked.
I would cook the recipe through to stage 6 and then pop it in the fridge for a couple of days or freeze it. Then reheat the curry and add the spinach, ginger and ghee to finish the dish when you reheat it.
Why do you add the ghee and ginger at the end of the curry?
Adding ghee and ginger for the final 5 minutes of this chicken sag completely changes the texture and the flavour of this recipe.
The ginger adds a wonderful and vibrant flavour to what is a very 'earthy' curry, and the ghee lends richness.
Can I use chicken breast?
Yes, you could; it does not have quite as much flavour as chicken thigh, and it can become dry if overcooked, but with gentle cooking, chicken breast can be delicious in this recipe.
How hot is this curry?
Like all curry recipes, how spicy they are depends on you, the cook. You can adjust the spice levels to your own taste.
Having said that, in a restaurant, this dish would fall firmly in the 'medium' curry range. All of the heat comes from Kashmiri chilli powder, which is not particularly spicy.
Can I make this with lamb?
Yes, but the timing changes significantly. Fortunately, I have a lamb saag recipe thanks to a few reader requests.
What is the difference between saag and saagwala curries?
Absolutely nothing, saag translates to 'leaf greens' in Hindi, the "wala" at the end when translated roughly means "the one with the leaf greens".
Serving Suggestions
My first port of call for side dishes with any curry dish is usually flatbread, and this chicken saag is no different.
My two go-to choices are usually a tandoori-style naan bread or some chapatis. If I am making them at home, my choice is defined by how much planning I have done, the latter only takes around half an hour.
Rice is also another obvious but glorious option. I'm often lazy with rice and opt for plain rice, but pilau rice is always a welcome change.
Potatoes are an overlooked option as a side for a curry, and no, I am not talking about chips. I think that the wonderful flavours in this chicken saagwala are absolutely perfect alongside aloo methi or fenugreek potatoes.
Don't forget a big pile of poppadoms, kachumber salad, mango chutney and mint raita to kick off your Indian-inspired feast!
Equipment Used
I only mention brands of equipment if I think that they make a material difference to a recipe. But if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section below the recipe.
- Hob/stovetop.
- 30cm or 12" frying pan with a lid.
- Chopping board.
- Kitchen knife.
- Grater.
- Mini blender.
- A combination of weighing scales, a measuring jug, measuring cups and spoons.
Chicken Saag Curry Recipe
Ingredients
- 275 g Chicken Thighs 10oz (boneless and skinless)
- 1 Medium Onion
- 6 Garlic Cloves
- 1 tablespoon Coriander Powder
- 1 tablespoon Kashmiri Chili Powder
- ½ teaspoon Turmeric
- ½ teaspoon Amchoor
- 1 teaspoon Garam Masala
- 100 g Tomato Passata ⅓ Cup
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- ½ teaspoon Black Pepper
- 250 g Baby Spinach 8-10 Cups
- 15 g Ginger ½ Thumb Sized Piece
- 1 tablespoon Dried Fenugreek
- 3 tablespoon Ghee
Instructions
- Peel and roughly chop the onion, then throw it into a mini blender.
- Peel the garlic cloves and add them to the blender with 2-3 tablespoons of water, then blend them to a smooth paste.
- Heat a 30cm or 12" frying pan over a high heat and add half of the ghee, add the onion and cook for 2-3 minutes to drive off the water, then reduce the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes until golden brown.
- Add in the ground coriander, Kashmiri chilli powder, turmeric, amchoor and garam masala and stir for 30 seconds.
- Pour in the tomato passata and 250ml (1 cup) of water and cook for 5 minutes over a medium heat. Use this time to dice the chicken into bite-sized pieces.
- Add the chicken to the pan with salt and pepper, stir, add a lid, and cook for 20 minutes over a medium heat.
- Remove the lid and add the spinach, yes there is a lot, don't worry it will cook down, then return the lid and cook until the spinach has wilted, this will take 3-4 minutes.
- Peel and grate the ginger.
- When the spinach has wilted, remove the lid, add the remaining ghee and freshly grated ginger, and crush in the dried fenugreek leaves, then, stir and cook for 5 more minutes or until the curry thickens.
Hi
Just tried this saag sauce and thoroughly enjoyed it ! I found it a little hot for my palate so could you advise me which spices I can cut down on to soften the taste?
Adding the extra ghee, really did give it a richness
Thank you
Hey Jan...
The only "chilli" heat here comes from the Kashmiri chilli powder, the first thing you should do is make sure that you have Kashmiri chilli powder, it is sweeter and milder the regular chilli powder. However, feel free to reduce the amount of this used to sit within your comfort levels 🙂
As a side note, ginger does not add heat, but it is very zingy and adding it at the end of the cooking process can give the impression of additional "spice", adding it 10 minute earlier will reduce that impression a little.
Happy eating.
Brian 🙂
So good! Super easy and very tasty
Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Hi, I have just found this recipe online and am planning a 'cook in'. Does the curry freeze well? I'm not a spinach fan but I'm preparing this for our family of 6 and the other 5 do like spinach! Does freezing cause the spinach to go slimy? Many thanks.
Hi Dianne... I am not a fan of freezing spinach curries, it could have a tendency to go bitter when it is reheated, I would make the curry to completion then freeze and add fresh spinach when you reheat it. Enjoy... Brian
Hello. Could I just check, is it dried fenugreek leaves that I should be using? Is it possible to substitute with ground fenugreek and if so, how much would you use? I’m guessing the leaves and the ground seeds might taste quite different. Thank you. Gill
Hey Gill, yes you can use fenugreek powder and seeds, I use it in a few of my "creamier" curry recipes. It has a similar flavour but it is much more "punchy" and aggressive in flavour than the leaves, particularly on the bitterness front. If you can get seeds then toast them before crushing helps knock that back a little, if using straight-up powder then I would say start at around a 1/4 tsp and check the flavour. I suspect you will settle somewhere a little over 1/2 a tsp 🙂
Enjoy
Absolutely fabulous !
One of the best curry’s I’ve made it makes a takeaway taste rubbish
Cheers Adrian, I'm very glad you enjoyed it!
We’ve used many of your recipes which we love. Tried this one last night and it was very bitter. Have researched fenugreek and coriander, both which read to have bitter undertones, your recipe states quite large quantities of these two spices in relation to the others. Just checking that they are correct and if so, maybe we personally need to reduce the amounts. Definitely going to give it another go but would welcome your input. Great website, we love it.
Hey Snuzey, glad you like my recipe 🙂 The 'bitter' flavour profile of the recipe is largely a result of the spinach, I like it this way, however the best way to change it up is to cook the spinach quickly rather than slowly. Throw in the spinach at stage 10 with the ginger and ghee and just let it wilt for 5 minutes and that should scale back that iron-rich flavour that I suspect you are not enjoying so much 🙂
Am I reading the recipe correctly? The onion/garlic is dry fried? No oil? And the grated ginger is added last and not cooked through?
Can I tarka/temper the ghee and ginger together, and then add it to the curry? 🙂
Hey Jeff, I've updated the recipe to make the instructions clearer... On the subject of the ginger, yes add it at the end and just cook it for 5 more minutes or so to keep the flavour vibrant and fresh. You could temper it in ghee if you wanted 🙂
This is such a gorgeous dish! And I love all of the spices you have used in here! Can't wait to try it!
Thanks Beth
Hi Brian. Your recipes look amazing! I'm looking forward to trying them out on my family. I was wondering if you had an email subscribers list that I could sign up to get your recipes sent to me regularly?
Hi Rebecca... My site has recently undergone a redesign and I have yet to put my sign up form back in. You can sign up here, http://eepurl.com/bpqebH I email once a week on a Sunday evening (Central European Time) with my new posts in the past week 🙂
I love this! It's a dish I often make at home but I have to go easy on the spinach these days otherwise my kids avoid all of the sauce!
Same here, fortunately so does my wife 😀
This dish so takes me back to many a British curry restaurant, as I'm sure it does for you. Looks wonderful - like the tip about adding ghee and ginger at the end, I must try that.
Thanks Caroline... Adding the ghee at the end is very much similar to classic European cooking, enriching sauces with butter but the ginger thing blew my mind. It adds a wonderful warm ginger heat and top note to the recipe which I loved!
Absolutely delicious, would love some for my lunch with one of your delicious naans, apart from armchoor which I never heard of I love all the ingredients in this recipe, going to shop for chicken and spinach this afternoon!
Thanks Patty!