Home-style recipes from around the world, written for real kitchens

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Chicken karahi in a karahi pan: bone-in chicken in a thick tomato sauce, topped with julienned ginger, green chilies, and cilantro
Prep20 min
Cook40 min
Serves4 servings
CuisinePakistani
South Asia

Chicken Karahi: Pakistani Tomato and Green Chili Curry Cooked in the Wok

Chicken karahi, a staple of Lahore's eateries, made with bone-in chicken, tomatoes, yogurt, ginger, garlic, and green chilies. Why there are no onions, how the dish took its name from the pot, the heat for breaking down the tomatoes, checking the chicken is cooked through, and serving with naan.

Total: 1 hrLevel: Beginner

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 6

Prepare the chicken and tomatoes

Cut pieces of bone-in chicken, chopped tomatoes, and julienned ginger
Cut the chicken into 5–6 cm pieces and the tomatoes into 2 cm pieces

If the pieces of bone-in chicken are large, cut them so the whole comes to about 16 pieces, each 5–6 cm, and pat dry with paper towels. Core the tomatoes and chop them into 2 cm pieces, cut the ginger for the finish into very fine julienne, slice the green chilies, and roughly chop the cilantro. When you have finished cutting in about 10 minutes, measure the spices and you are ready.

STEP 22 / 6

Fry the chicken with ginger and garlic

Frying bone-in chicken with ginger and garlic in the pan
Fry about 5 minutes, until the surface of the chicken changes color

Heat 60 ml oil in the karahi or wok over medium-high heat and add the chicken. Add the grated ginger and garlic and fry about 5 minutes, turning with a wooden spatula. Move on when the surface of the chicken has changed to a whitish color all over and has taken on a light browning in places. Ginger and garlic scorch easily, so if they begin to stick to the bottom, lower the heat a little.

STEP 33 / 6

Add the tomatoes and spices and cook over high heat

Adding the tomatoes and spices, covering, and cooking down over high heat
Cook over high heat until the tomatoes lose their shape and become a thick sauce

Add the tomatoes and all the spices except the black pepper (salt, chili powder, ground cumin, cumin seeds, garam masala) and mix. Cover and cook over high heat about 15 minutes. Two or three times partway through, lift the lid and stir the whole pot so the bottom does not scorch. This step is done when the tomatoes have lost their shape and broken down into a thick sauce.

STEP 44 / 6

Add the yogurt and simmer 10 minutes

Adding yogurt to the broken-down tomato sauce and stirring
Cook about 10 minutes, until the yogurt blends in and oil floats on the surface

Lift the lid, stir 120 g plain yogurt until smooth, and add it to the pot. Mix everything together and cook over medium heat about 10 minutes, stirring now and then. It is enough when the yogurt has blended into the sauce, the color is a little lighter, and a thin film of oil floats on the surface. Stirring the yogurt well before adding it helps it dissolve into the sauce.

STEP 55 / 6

Cover and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes

Chicken karahi simmered under a lid over low heat, the sauce clinging to the chicken
Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes, until the sauce clings to the chicken

Cover, lower the heat, and simmer about 10 minutes. It is done when the chicken is tender in the sauce and the sauce has reduced enough to cling to it. Take out the largest piece, cut about 1 cm deep close to the bone, and check that there is no pink and the juices run clear.

STEP 66 / 6

Finish with black pepper and garnishes

Sprinkling black pepper over the dish, then scattering green chilies, julienned ginger, and cilantro
Turn off the heat, scatter the pepper and garnishes, and serve in the pot

Turn off the heat and sprinkle 1/2 tsp coarsely crushed black pepper over everything. Scatter the sliced green chilies, julienned ginger, and chopped cilantro on top and carry the pot to the table. A sauce that clings to the chicken, with the green of the garnishes standing out vividly, is the mark of a finished dish. The point is to sprinkle the black pepper at the end to release its aroma; added partway through the simmer, the aroma is lost.

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Ingredients

Ingredients

1 / 3

Chicken and the stew

Ingredient Amount Substitutes & notes
Bone-in chicken 1 kg Cut into about 16 pieces. Bone-in thighs or drumettes
Neutral oil 60 ml —
Ginger (grated) 1 tsp —
Garlic (grated) 1 tsp —
Tomatoes 4 Roughly chopped
Plain yogurt 120 g Unsweetened
2 / 3

Spices

Ingredient Amount Substitutes & notes
Salt 1 tsp —
Chili powder (ground red chili) 3/4 tsp Adjust the heat to taste
Ground cumin 1/2 tsp —
Cumin seeds 1 tsp Whole
Garam masala 1/4 tsp —
Black pepper 1/2 tsp Coarsely crushed. For finishing
3 / 3

To finish

Ingredient Amount Substitutes & notes
Green chilies 2–3 Thinly sliced. Shishito peppers also work
Ginger (julienned) 2 cm piece Cut very fine
Cilantro a handful Roughly chopped
Naan or rice 4 servings Roti or plain white rice also work
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A cook puts an iron pot over high heat, tosses in bone-in chicken, and turns it briskly with a wooden spatula. Once the tomatoes go in, the pot turns into a red sauce before your eyes, and oil begins to bubble up on the surface. Julienned ginger and green chilies go on at the end, and the pot goes straight to the customer's table. The familiar chicken karahi of Pakistani eateries is a quick, bold chicken stew whose name is simply the name of the pot.

When the pot's name became the dish

Chicken karahi in its karahi pan being carried to a table at a Pakistani eatery

A karahi is a thick, round, deep pan, similar to a wok. Any curry made in this pan is called karahi: with chicken it is chicken karahi, with lamb or goat it is gosht karahi. The word is old; karahi in Hindi and Urdu is said to go back to ancient Indian languages. In India it is also written "kadai," and North Indian restaurants sometimes serve it under the name kadai chicken.

Chicken karahi is said to have originated in the Punjab, which spans Pakistan and India, and is best known as a specialty of Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city. Gosht karahi, made with lamb or goat, is thought to have originated in the North-West Frontier Province of the British colonial era, today's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In any case, in Pakistani cities such as Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, and Islamabad, it is a staple you will meet at any eatery.

Did you know

While many curries begin by frying onions, chicken karahi is traditionally made without onions. The thickness and sweetness of the sauce come from plenty of tomatoes breaking down. Some versions add onions, but try it first in the onion-free form.

The heart of the flavor is ginger, garlic, tomatoes, green chilies, and cilantro. Because the tomatoes are broken down in one go over high heat and the chicken is coated in a rich sauce, the result comes together surprisingly fast for a stew, and it can reach the table in about an hour. This version follows a home-style method presented by a Pakistani-born cook who runs a Pakistani restaurant in Dubai.

What to know when you cook it at home

Bone-in chicken thighs, tomatoes, plain yogurt, green chilies, and cilantro

You can make this well in a wok or a deep frying pan even without a karahi. You need a lid, so choose a pan with a lid that fits snugly. The karahi's round, wide base is good for reducing the sauce quickly. If you use a frying pan, a wide one about 30 cm across, as the American magazine Milk Street tested, lets the tomato moisture cook off quickly.

Use bone-in chicken. A combination of bone-in thigh pieces cut up and drumettes is easy. The savoriness from the bones melts into the sauce and brings the taste closer to a Pakistani eatery. You can make it with boneless thighs, but shorten the cooking time and watch so the chicken does not turn tough.

Tip

Use 1 tsp each of grated ginger and grated garlic. Tube ginger and garlic work, but freshly grated gives a much stronger aroma. For the julienned ginger at the end, cut it as thin as you can, and its sharp bite blends nicely into the sauce.

If you cannot find green chilies, shishito peppers with a little chili flakes can stand in. Cilantro is an essential aroma for the finish, so try to have it.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Ingredients for chicken karahi: bone-in chicken, tomatoes, yogurt, ginger, garlic, and spices

Tip

Measure the spices from the salt through the garam masala together on a small plate. The black pepper is used only at the end, so keep it on a separate plate and you will not add it at the wrong time.

Warning

This dish contains dairy (yogurt). If you have a milk allergy, leave out the yogurt and add a little extra water instead. The richness and mellowness of the sauce will be reduced.

How to make chicken karahi

Count on about 20 minutes of prep and about 40 minutes of cooking, about 1 hour in all. Once the chicken starts frying there are almost no pauses, so have everything cut and measured first.

Warning

Cook the chicken thoroughly to the center. The US FoodSafety.gov gives an internal temperature of 74°C (165°F) for chicken as the guide for safe cooking. Bone-in meat is slow to cook around the bone, so if you have a cooking thermometer, measure in the thick part of the meat without touching the bone to be sure.

Tip

If the bottom of the pot threatens to scorch in step 3, add 2 tbsp water at a time and scrape it up. When the tomatoes are low in moisture, the pot scorches more easily.

Serving and how it is eaten in Pakistan

Chicken karahi on the table in its pot, with freshly baked naan
Serve in the pot and scoop up the sauce with naan

At Pakistani eateries, some places bring the dish to the table in the karahi it was cooked in. The standard way is to tear naan or roti, scoop up the sauce, and work the chicken off the bone as you eat. It is also good with plain white rice, and mixing the sauce into the rice brings out the taste of the tomatoes and spices.

If you want to enjoy more Pakistani meat dishes, try it against the slowly simmered nihari (in Japanese). Karahi, finished fast over high heat, and nihari, simmered over a long time, are both Pakistani, but they differ completely in their approach. To add another dish from the northwest, chapli kebab (in Japanese), flat-fried minced meat with spices, goes well too.

Ways to vary it

Mutton gosht karahi beside chicken karahi

Swap the chicken for bone-in lamb or mutton and you have gosht karahi. Lamb takes longer to cook than chicken, so give the low-heat simmer in step 5 more time and keep watching until the meat is tender.

Adjust the heat with the chili powder and green chilies. If someone at the table dislikes spice, reduce the chili powder to 1/4 tsp and let everyone add green chilies at the table, so you can split the heat in one pot. There is also an onion version: before step 2, fry 2 chopped onions until golden and then add the chicken.

Frequently asked questions

Leftover chicken karahi being moved to a storage container

Can I make it with boneless chicken?

Yes. Cut boneless thighs into large bite-size pieces, shorten the times in steps 3 and 5 slightly, and watch so the chicken does not turn tough. Always check at the end that it is cooked through to the center.

Can I use canned tomatoes?

You can use canned diced tomatoes in place of fresh. Canned tomatoes have more liquid, so in step 3 cook with the lid off and reduce until you have a thick sauce.

The yogurt separated.

Stir the yogurt until smooth before adding it and do not boil it hard afterward, and it separates less easily. Even if it separates, the taste is not seriously affected, so you can simply keep cooking and finish the dish.

Can I make it ahead?

It is a cooked chicken dish, so the rule is to finish it soon after making it. If there are leftovers, let the heat drop, refrigerate promptly, and when reheating, heat in a pot until hot all the way through.

Sources

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