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-sec 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 1x
- 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
Units
Scale
- 1 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed into 1-inch cubes ( about 6 cups)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Garam masala Spice Blend
- 1/2 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
- 1/4 cup garlic (10 cloves)
- 1–4 small fresh serrano chilies- cut in half lengthwise- roughly 1-3 tablespoons- (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 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon dried fenugreek leaves (optional but AMAZING)
- 3/4 cup plain, full-fat yogurt (or 3/4 cup of canned coconut milk, or 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream)
- —-
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro for garnish
- Serve with basmati rice or naan bread
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- In a medium bowl, toss butternut squash with olive oil, garam masala and salt, until evenly coated. Spread out on a parchment-lined sheet pan and roast in the oven for 30 minutes. (You can also roast the chickpeas if you like them crispy- toss with the butternut, add a little extra oil.)
- *If adding chicken, place cut-up chicken into a 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.
- 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, turn the hood on, stirring, 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 garam masala cinnamon and paprika, and cook for 2 more minutes, to intensify flavor. Add tomatoes, salt, pepper, water and optional fenugreek leaves. Bring to a simmer, lower heat and simmer on low heat for 15-20 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.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: with full-fat yogurt
- Calories: 276
- Sugar: 6.9 g
- Sodium: 815.7 mg
- Fat: 14.6 g
- Saturated Fat: 2.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 31 g
- Fiber: 7.3 g
- Protein: 9.5 g
- Cholesterol: 4.6 mg
I made this recipe with garbanzos and coconut milk. Really delicious flavors and super simple with my store-bought garam masala mix! Next time I will add paneer cheese AND chicken AND garbanzos! Thank you for another great recipe.
Great to hear Whitney!
We *love* this recipe. We have another for curried butternut squash but much prefer this one. We make it vegan so we substitute chickpeas for the chicken and roast them with the butternut squash.
A couple of notes:
We use a store-bought garam masala spice mix. It works and it tastes great, so if you’re short on time, it’s a viable alternative.
We cook brown rice in our Instant Pot. It takes 22 minutes at high pressure + time to come to pressure and release pressure.
All three vital pieces of the recipe (sauce, squash + chickpeas, and the rice) take approximately 30 minutes each, so I highly recommend getting everything ready beforehand and doing everything all at once. It’s much easier with two people, even if one is doing most of the work while the other provides them with whatever recipe or utensil they need.
I hope this helps someone. Thanks for the recipe!
I forgot to add this and can’t edit my comment so I’m replying to it:
We use full-fat unsweetened coconut milk instead of yogurt. It’s tasty and vegan.
We also substitute one ~15 oz can of minced roma tomatoes instead of cutting them. This cuts down on prep time considerably.
Thanks again!
Thanks so much!
This is a fabulous recipe! It tasted like fine dining quality and I am so appreciative that you shared it with us all. Thank you!
Thanks so much Joy- I’m happy you liked it!
this is one of my favorite fall recipes! thank you!
Thank you Mert! I’m so happy you like it!!!
The perfect fall dish! I have never made a dish like this so I was worried I wouldn’t get it right. The instructions and pictures were so helpful and it came out fabulous. So yummy on a cold night. Thank you!
Great to hear!
Yummy, new favorite!
This was great and pretty easy considering how complex it tastes. Will definitely be making this again. I used a can of lite coconut milk instead of yogurt to make it vegan. (Just don’t add the water or it will be too thin!)
Perfect, thanks for sharing!!!
This was excellent!
Just made this recipe with garbanzo beans and coconut milk. Absolutely fabulous! Thank you, saves me from having to uber eats indian food!
Awesome Mark! Thanks for sharing and good to know it tasted good, being totally vegan! YAY!
Ever since stumbling upon this recipe a couple of years ago, I have made it at least once a month. We change it up depending on the time of year– in winter we use canned tomatoes instead of fresh, and I also love that when I do my JAnuary Whole 30 we can use coconut milk and it still tastes amazing. We also made a big batch and froze it while I was pregnant so after the baby arrived we just dropped it all in a crock pot and had a delicious and healthy meal ready with no prep. This will forever be one of my go-to recipes! Love it!
Thanks so much and so good to know it works in a crock pot!
Wow, this was scrumptious!! Some minor substitutions due to availability (I used veggie broth, jalepenoes and a box of Pomi tomates) but I don’t think they changed the final product all that much. Our supper club tried to eat it as slowly as possible so we could savor the deliciousness longer!! Thank you again for sharing your wonderfully crafted recipes!
I am not a fan of ginger. Will it mess the recipe up if I don’t use it?
I wonder, if when it’s all in there, if you will be able to specifically taste it? The flavors round each other out and balance each other. What if you tried, starting with using less?
I absolutely love this dish! I’ve made it at least 4 times, using paneer instead of chicken. Delist!
Oh perfect jen! thanks for sharing, paneer is great!
do you add the fenugreek leaves before or after blend it?
Before, with the water- I updated the recipe to reflect…thanks and sorry about that!
Thank-you so much for this yummy recipe. Made it tonight, and was a big hit with Hubby. Just changed to one Serrano, instead of two — we are wusses when it comes to heat. Thanks again.
Thanks so much for your feedback…appreciate it!!
I have been looking for a nice recipe like this… yours by far is the closest. Thank you!
Thank you Rachel!!
Yummy, thanks for this recipe. My favorite dish.
Yummy, thanks for this recipe. My favorite dish.
I’m surprised by the fat amount in the nutrition label. Is that for making with yogurt, coconut milk, or cream? Looks delicious!
I was too. Sometimes I think my nutrition calculator is totally off. I think I put it in with yogurt. In the recipe I actually used a low fat yogurt, but the calculator may have read it as whole yogurt.
You know, often I don’t peel the ginger, when the skin is thin and fresh. 🙂
Slice unpeeled fresh ginger into thin discs and Freeze ?
Easy Prep!
Awesome, love it!
Yum…I love the butternut squash addition! I love tikka masala, and have wanted to make my own for quite a while but for a hundred lame reasons haven’t yet gotten around to it. You totally inspired me to get in the kitchen and finally make it this weekend!
I love tikka masala but have never made it from scratch before. Definitely a delicious recipe that I must recreate.. thanks for the inspiration!
This is about to become my new fav curry!! Holy yum!
This looks amazing – I love the sound of squash in this!! Perfect for fall!