A chicken tikka sandwich is the best thing that can happen to bread and tikka.

I’ll get my rant out of the way quickly, here. Chicken tikka isn’t a curry. It’s the actual chicken cutlet in marinade. And that’s it. Just like namaste means hello/goodbye, a tikka is marinated pieces of meat. So it drives me crazy that every chicken tikka sandwich recipe you see is some sort of gloopy red mess. Sure…if you wanted a chicken tikka masala sandwich that would be a bit messier. But also a different dish. The cultural appropriation that occurs with ethnic cuisine is exhausting and imperialistic. It just needs to stop. That said, fusion is great, but chefs, recipe developers, and humans at large need to take the 2 seconds to say, “This is our take on..” and poof many sins are forgiven.

Now then, back to the sandwich. I’m still in the rant headspace, so it’s highly possible that it will be be a bit of an aggressive take on why your should try the sandwich. Ultimately, you should make the sandwich because it’s delicious. I don’t always enjoy cooking or eating heavy curries. Not to mention, there’s more to Indian cuisine than curry and naan. There’s baked keema buns, custards like the cardamom saffron rosewater custard, and sandwiches like this one. Inevitably, people only think of India as “ethnic”, whereas, in reality it has strong British, French, Dutch, Middle Eastern, and Spanish influences. Which means the cuisine and cooking process varies significantly region by region.

The best part about chicken tikka is that you just throw it in the marinade and stick in in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Then when you’re ready to eat it, just cook it up and you’re ready to go. I also like to keep a batch of marinated chicken in the freezer for the random meal or guest that pops in.

I won’t go into the details on how to assemble a sandwich, I trust you to be able to do that on your own.

Looking for more lunch options? Try these: