Chicken Angara (North Indian Smoky Creamy Chili Sauce with Tofu)

This is a vegan version of rich, smoky Indian chicken angara. This restaurant-style curry has a fiery aromatic chili sauce! We smoke a cinnamon stick instead of charcoal to add a delicious smoky flavor! Serve with naan, flatbread, or rice or over baked potato for a delicious meal. gluten-free with nut-free and soy-free options

Chicken angara is a popular dish in some North Indian restaurants. It has this thick sauce made with fried onion, yogurt, lots of spices, and either dried whole Kashmiri chilis, regular Indian chilies, or Kashmiri chili powder. The chilis add to the fiery red color of the sauce as well as to the heat.

Angar/Angaar means fire, and you’re incorporating fire into this dish by adding a lot of heat and color from the Kashmiri chilis and smoking it with some live fire at the end. The signature smoky flavor is incorporated using a smoking food safe charcoal. But We smoke it using a cinnamon stick. Just heat the cinnamon stick (or charcoal) until it’s red hot, then put it in a heat safe ramekin, drizzle with a little bit of oil. The ramekin actually goes into the pan of finished chicken angara, and you cover the pan with the lid, so the smoke infuses the dish.

Cinnamon stick is a tree bark and thin and doesn’t restrain the heat as long as charcoal, so add oil quickly. The good thing about using the cinnamon stick is 1. You can reheat it, 2. You can use the oil! The oil will have a smoky cinnamon flavor and can be added to the food. Do not use the oil that was poured over the charcoal.

This is another recipe in my series where I veganize traditionally meat-heavy Indian dishes. Check out my recipes for Salli Boti ( western Indian curry with potato sticks), Rara Chicken(North Indian onion cardamom curry), Goan Peri peri Chikin tofu, and Pahadi curry (Mountain onion pepper curry), for more from this series.

As with lots of Indian curries, the flavor is in the sauce, so you can use your plant-based protein of choice and it will still taste absolutely delicious. If you don’t want to use tofu, you can use chickpea tofu, chickpeas or other white beans, veggies, vegan chicken, or seitan. And as with many restaurant style curries, it’s about patience on letting everything toast and toast really well at each step and letting the flavors develop! Let’s make this fantastic tofu Angara!

Why You’ll Love Angara Chicken

• rich, smoky, plant-based North Indian restaurant curry with so many amazing spices!
• fun to make! Play with fire!
• delicious one-pan meal
• naturally gluten-free with easy soy-free and nut-free options

Ingredients and Substitutions

• ground spices – For the angara spice mix, you will need ground coriander, cumin, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom. You will also use Kashmiri chili powder to season the tofu and in the sauce. You’ll also need fenugreek leaves for the sauce and smoked paprika for finishing.
• almond flour – Gives the angara spice mix texture. Omit for nut-free.
• tofu – Pressed firm or extra firm tofu torn into bite-sized pieces is your vegan chicken. You can use other meat subs, like chickpeas, seitan, chickpea tofu, or vegan chicken, if you prefer.
• cornstarch – Helps the tofu crisp up in the pan. Use other starch sauce as tapioca or arrowroot as a substitute
• oil – To crisp the tofu, saute, and to smoke the angara chicken curry sauce.
• aromatics – Onion and ginger garlic paste give the sauce an amazing flavor! You can use minced ginger and garlic instead, if you don’t have the paste.
• whole spices – You’ll season the sauce with a black cardamom pod, bay leaf, and whole clove. To smoke the sauce, you will use a cinnamon stick or a piece of food safe charcoal.
• tomato – Both chopped tomato and tomato puree add moisture, umami, and give the sauce more fiery red color.
• non-dairy yogurt – Makes the sauce creamy.

How to Make Chicken Angara

Add all of the spice mix ingredients in a small bowl, mix really well, and set aside. 

Press the tofu, if you haven’t already, and then tear into pieces. Add the tofu to a bowl along with 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons of the angara spice mix and the salt, Kashmiri chili powder, and cornstarch.

Toss well to coat, then heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add a teaspoon of oil, then once the oil is hot, add the tofu and spread evenly.

Continue to cook for 2 to 3 minutes, then flip the tofu and cook the other side for another 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the tofu from the skillet, and set aside.

Heat the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 teaspoons oil, and once the oil is hot add the onion, salt, black cardamom pod, bay leaf and whole clove, mixing well. Continue to cook until the onion is golden brown, adding splashes the water in between to help the onion brown evenly. Stir frequently, so that the onion doesn’t burn, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Once the onion is golden brown, reduce the heat to medium, and mix in the remaining angara spice mix. If the onions have dried out a little bit, add a splash of water to mix in the spices.

Then, add in the ginger garlic paste, fenugreek and mix in for a few seconds. Then add tomatoes, tomato puree,  Kashmiri chili powder, yogurt, remaining salt, and water. Press and mix in all of the ingredients, then cover with the lid and let it cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring once in between, so that the sauce doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. 

Fold in the tofu, tossing well to coat. If the sauce has thickened too much, mix in more water or stock. Cover with the lid, reduce the heat to medium-low, and let it simmer for 10 minutes or longer to infuse a lot of flavor into the tofu. Then, taste and adjust salt and flavor, adding more salt, if needed. You can add in more heat, if you like, by adding a little bit of cayenne or Indian chili powder. 

Reduce the heat to low, and sprinkle the smoked paprika on top of the angara chicken, and let it simmer.

Nestle a heat safe ramekin that will fit your cinnamon stick, into the pan where you’re cooking the curry, and add the 2 teaspoons of oil to it.

Then, hold the cinnamon stick with tongs over an open flame until at least 1/2 of the cinnamon stick is blackened and it catches fire. Put it into the ramekin with the oil, so that the oil starts to smoke. Cover the pan with the lid. Let the smoke from the cinnamon stick infuse the sauce.

Depending on how much you heated the cinnamon stick, it can smoke really quickly. If it doesn’t smoke enough the first time for your taste, you can redo the smoking step or use a small food safe charcoal instead of the cinnamon stick. If you use the cinnamon stick, you can also drizzle the smoked oil over the finished dish for an even deeper smoky flavor. If you’re using charcoal, please do not use that oil.
After smoking for 5 minutes, open the lid, switch off the heat, and garnish with some cilantro and lemon juice and serve with naan, flatbread, rice or quinoa.

What to Serve with Chicken Angara

Serve this with rice or quinoa or with naan or flatbread.