This fall-inspired recipe for Roasted Butternut Tikka Masala can be made with chickpeas or chicken. The fragrant tomato coconut sauce is infused with Indian spices. A healthy delicious vegetarian dinner recipe, perfect for fall! Vegan-adaptable & Gluten-Free. With a video!
This aromatic, flavorful recipe for Roasted Butternut and Chickpea Tikka Masala is bursting with Indian flavors. Traditionally, Tikka Masala is made with chicken, bathed in creamy tomato curry sauce seasoned with garam masala.
In this recipe, roasted butternut is added to the mix, a nod to fall, giving it a hint of sweetness. Feel free to add chickpeas, chicken, crispy tofu or paneer for added protein.
The traditional heavy cream is replaced with either plain Greek yogurt or vegan yogurt, or coconut milk, making for a lighter meal without sacrificing the richness that the dish needs. Serve this over fluffy basmati rice or with naan bread and enjoy the warming flavors.
An added benefit to this Tikka Masala Recipe are the leftovers, which get even tastier as the ingredients have time to meld- perfect for weekday lunches during the week.
Watch the Butternut Tikka Masala Video | 60-second video
How to make Butternut Tikka Masala:
It starts with fresh ingredients. Butternut squash, ginger, garlic, serrano chilies and fresh roma tomatoes.
Butternut squash is peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes.
It’s tossed with olive oil, garam masala spice and salt and roasted in the oven.
It comes out tender and crispy. Roasting, rather that steaming, helps prevents the squash from falling apart in the curry, giving it a good texture. It’s actually quite good just served like this too.
While the butternut is roasting, make the sauce.
Ginger, garlic and chilies are chopped finely in a food processor.
Make a flavorful chili paste with garlic, chilies and ginger.
Saute the paste in olive oil or ghee until lightly browned and fragrant.
Tomato paste is added to the ginger-garlic mixture, and also “browned” to give the Tikka Masala Sauce a little depth.
Fresh Roma tomatoes are added in next. Roughly chop them… the sauce will eventually be blended!
Add water and spices and let this simmer on the stove for 20 minutes, then blend until it’s smooth.
Whisk in yogurt and finally add the roasted butternut and chickpeas (or chicken) to the pot.
To serve, place in a bowl over basmati rice and garnish with cilantro and a dollop of plain yogurt .
So wholesome and delicious!
What to serve with Butternut Tikka Masala:
Hope you enjoy this recipe for Butternut Tikka Masala as much as we do! Let me know in the comments below!
xoxo
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Roasted Butternut Tikka Masala
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 6
- Category: Vegan Dinner Recipe, Vegetarian, Entree, Fall
- Method: Stove-top
- Cuisine: Indian
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This fall-inspired recipe for Roasted Butternut Tikka Masala can be made with chickpeas or chicken. The fragrant tomato coconut sauce is infused with Indian spices. Vegan & Gluten Free! A healthy delicious dinner recipe, perfect for fall! Video above!
Ingredients
- 1 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed into 1-inch cubes ( about 6 cups)
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons Garam masala Spice Blend
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 can chickpeas, drained (or sub 1 lb boneless chicken thighs cut into bite-sized pieces)
Tikka Masala Sauce Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup sliced ginger
- ¼ cup garlic (10 cloves)
- 2–4 fresh serrano chilies- cut in half lengthwise ( or sub a jalapeno)
- 4 tablespoons ghee or olive oil
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon garam masala (see below)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 8 roma tomatoes- rough chopped ( sauce will be blended)
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1 ½ C water
- 1 tablespoon dried fenugreek leaves (optional but AMAZING)
- ¾ cup plain, full-fat yogurt (or 3/4 cup of canned coconut milk, or ½ Cup Heavy Cream)
- —-
- ¼ Cup chopped cilantro for garnish
- Serve with basmati rice or naan bread
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F. In a medium bowl, toss butternut with 2 T oil, garam masala and salt, until evenly coated. Spread out on a parchment-lined sheet pan and roast in the oven for 30 minutes.
- (If adding chicken, place cut up chicken into the same bowl. Drizzle with 1-2 teaspoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon garam masala, and toss to coat. Place on another baking sheet or baking dish, and bake for 25 minutes or until cooked through. Broil for a minute or two to get a deeper color.
- While the butternut is roasting, make the Tikka Masala sauce: Place sliced ginger, garlic and chiles in a food processor to make a paste. Pulse until very finely chopped. Heat the ghee or oil in a heavy bottom pot or dutch oven. Saute the paste over medium heat until nicely browned for 6-8 minutes, stirring often, scraping up brown bits with a metal spatula. Cook until golden. Add tomato paste, and sauté for 1-2 minutes, or until color deepens. Add spices, and cook for 2 more minutes.
- Add tomatoes, salt, pepper, water and optional fenugreek leaves. Bring to a simmer, lower heat and simmer on low heat for 20 minutes.
- Blend the Tikka Masala Sauce in batches either using an immersion blender, (or a regular blender, covering the blender with a kitchen towel and firmly holding the lid down to prevent an explosion. Return the blended sauce to the pot). Whisk in the yogurt (or coconut milk or cashew cream, or heavy cream). This sauce could be made ahead and reheated!
- Add the roasted butternut squash and chickpeas (or roasted chicken) and bring to a simmer. Taste and adjust salt.
- Sprinkle with cilantro and serve over fluffy basmati rice, or with naan bread with a side of raita!
Notes
Notes: If making the Easy Garam Masala, know that using whole seeds and toasting them, then grinding them, will make an even more flavorful spice blend.
Keywords: Butternut Tikka Masala, Butternut Masala, Vegan tikka masala, chicken tikka masala, fall tikka masala recipe, butternut recipes
I have made this several times and it just gets better and better. A delicious meld of flavours and textures and fragrances. I use chickpeas to complement the butternut. It’s a winner every time.
★★★★★
Great to hear Brenda! Appreciate this!
I am a huge fan of your recipes! It all started with Mulligatawny Soup and then I used the Clean Eating Guide to break a very destructive eating pattern. I use your recipes each and every week and my healthy eating is still going strong three months later.
This was so awesome! We invited our family for dinner and I made the Butternut Squash Tikka Masala dish from scratch, including making the spice mix, Naan and Raita. It was a lot of work but they sure enjoyed every bite. Our 12 year old grandson gobbled it up and the family said it was as good as any Indian restaurant could produce. Proud Grandma Moment!
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Amazing Anna! thanks for sharing this- very appreciated!
This was amazing. I couldn’t find fenugreek leaves at Whole Foods so a coworker from India brought me some and it really makes a difference. I used my immersion blender and the sauce still had some small pieces of tomato skin in it, which is fine, but I’ll use the regular blender next time. Can’t wait to try this with other vegetables, like cauliflower, potatoes, peas. Thanks!
★★★★★
Thanks and glad you enjoyed it!
This is so good, I keep making it year after year ! Not always extremely faithfully, sure — I generally add an onion to the base, and fresh chilis that actually pack some heat are not that easy to come by where I live so I use dried bird’s eye chili, and I never blend the sauce because when squash is in season I’m using canned tomatoes and I find I don’t mind a few chunks here and there, don’t have an immersion blender and can’t be bothered to take the blender out — but as much as I can, and it always turns out delicious. Yesterday evening I made it with roasted kabocha squash and a few potatoes, and some carrots that cooked in the sauce. I’m very excited about the leftovers, as curries always get better with time. Thank you for this recipe !
★★★★★
Thanks so much and glad you like this one!
Great recipe! It was a last minute decision to make, so I used what I had on hand…a jar of passata instead of the roma tomatoes and low-fat yogurt and half & half for the dairy. I’ll definitely put this one in the rotation!
★★★★★
Awesome Sherie- great way to adapt to what you have. Love it!
We love this recipe as we can cook chicken, chick peas, cauliflower, squash separately and everyone chooses what they like with the sauce. I always throw some baby spinach into the sauce at the end.
Have to add that this week we made indian “pizza” with the leftovers and it was incredibly good. Just slather sauce on naan bread, sprinkle with mozzarella and bake at 400F until cheese is puffing up.
★★★★★
Love it Christine!
The best curry ever the whole family loved it
★★★★★
Oh great Ruth! thanks!
This recipe was easy and tasted divine. The sauce was so flavorful and the perfect texture made with Greek yogurt. I threw in fresh spinach with the chickpeas and butternut squash at the end.
Question about the fenugreek- the recipe calls for leaves, but my grocery only has powder. Would powder work in this recipe? Same measurement?
Thanks for another phenomenal recipe.
★★★★★
The powder is ground from the seeds, so it is a different flavor. I haven’t tried it with the powder, so not sure here!
I’ve cooked this dish several times and always think about the following: For the coconut milk, do we add 3/4 cup or 3/4 of a can as stated? The link to the coconut milk is for a 13.5 oz can so 3/4 of a 13.5 oz can would be 10.13 oz or a bit over a 1 1/4 cup.
Thanks.
★★★★★
Oh! I see the confusion! Ok it is fixed now. 3/4 cup of coconut milk. 🙂
Thank you for clarifying, Sylvia.
Cheers!
★★★★★
I too love this recipe. I’ve used both the powder and the leaves, and it’s definitely better with the leaves. In my opinion, the ground version added a bitter finish. I found the leaves on Amazon.
Cheers!
The ground powder is made with fenugreek seeds- so a different flavor altogether. Yes, Fenugreek leaves are best!
I appreciate when the recipe includes nutritional information. This one shows calories (345) and that’s all. How many servings does it make? What are the fat, cholesterol, sodium levels? Would have liked to try it but need info.
★★★
Hi- added them now! Sorry about that. Some of the older recipes don’t have this info yet- so just let me know and I can update!