Chicken pakora recipe aka chicken pakoda recipe at home

Chicken pakora recipe(চিকেন পাকোড়া রেসিপি) at home with detailed step-by-step pictures. Chicken pakora is a simply delicious, deep-fried crispy chicken fritter. Also written as chicken pakoda, both are pronounced the same, only the spellings are different. Pakora’s “r” is replaced with the English letter “d” in pakoda. Each pakora (pakora means fritter in English) contains soft juicy flavourful chicken pieces from the inside and a crispy cover from the outside. Popular as evening-time snacks in Indian street-side food stalls to standard restaurants’ menus. Best to serve with a sprinkle of chaat masala, tomato ketchup, and onion rings.

Chicken pakora is easy to make at home. Just go with these 5 easy steps. 1. Choose Bone-in or Boneless small to medium chicken pieces. 2. Go through a minimum of 30 minsmarination with Onion, Ginger-Garlic, Green Chillies, White pepper/black pepper, Red Chilli Powder, Salt, and Lemon juice. 3. Mix up the marinated Chicken with Gram Flour & Cornflour(or Rice flour), Baking soda, Fresh coriander, and Spring onion. 4. By the continuous sprinkling of Water get a nice coat over the chicken pieces to form a shape of pakora. 5. Deep fry the fritter until getting Golden and Crunchy. 

Things to remind for making crunchy & chicken pakora

• Small to medium bone-in or boneless chicken pieces are must-use ingredients.
• Marination of chicken is a must, to make it soft, juicy, and flavourful. Marinade for 1- 2 hrs for the best result.
• Use Besan or gram flour, a common ingredient for making the batter of any Indian fritter.
• Rice flour or cornflour is used to make it crunchy. For extra crunch add a pinch of soda.
• Fresh coriander and spring onion(though not mandatory) make it flavourful and delicious.

Serving suggestions:

Try this recipe at home for evening snacks, or at a house party with tea or coffee, or served as a starter with any drinks.

Let me know your valuable feedback about this recipe. Just by writing down your comment in the comment section below.

Check my other chicken starters recipes- Chicken Lollipop, Tandoori Chicken, Bengali Style Chicken Cutlet.

Recipe card for chicken pakora recipe aka chicken pakoda recipe at home

How to make chicken pakora with step by step pictures

Marinade the chicken

• Take small to medium chicken pieces(bone-in or boneless pieces) in a bowl, clean & wash them thoroughly. Drain it well to remove the excess water.

• Add chopped onion, chopped green chilies, grated ginger-garlic paste, salt, pepper powder, red chilli powder & 1/2 lemon juice with it. Mix it well. Shown in the below pics.

• Cover the mixture with a plate. Marinate it for a minimum of 30 mins to 2 hours.

Making of the batter

• At least after 30 mins of marination, add besan(gram flour), cornflour/rice flour, baking soda/cooking soda with the chicken. Then add chopped spring onion, chopped coriander & lastly black salt.

• Mix it well with a sprinkle of water. Mix it with water, until the batter makes a nice coat around the chicken pieces. As shown in the pics below.

How to fry chicken pakora

• Take a deep bottom pan, heat it on high flame, and put a cup of oil in it. First, check the temperature of the oil by dripping a drop of batter into the oil. If the drop immediately floats over the oil indicates the oil is ready for frying the pakoras.

• Once the oil perfectly gets hot, nicely coat each pakora in its batter and put it into the oil one by one. Don’t over crowd the pan, keep a minimum distance between the pakoras.

• Fry the pakoras in slow flame, fry it until the pakoras get golden from both sides. Raise the flame in high before removing the pakoras from the oil(reason is described in tips section). Keep the fritters in a paper lined plate.

• Once all pakoras are ready, serve it hot with tomato ketchup, onion rings by sprinkling chaat masala(not mandatory) over the pakoras. Serve it as evening snacks or starter at dinner.

Tips & tricks about this recipe

• How long you marinade the chicken, chicken will get more soft, juicy, flavourful, and delicious.
• Coating of Batter must not be too thick besides comparatively thin coat make it tastier.
• Spring onion is not mandatory however use to enhance its taste. Whereas fresh coriander is used to enhance its flavor.
• Basically, Gram flour is used in making Indian fritters. However, you can replace the gram flour with all-purpose flour or maida. Just as we make Chinese fritters with maida and cornflour. Remind the making process of chicken fritters used in making Chinese Chilli Chicken or Manchurian recipes.
• I used Cornflour in the batter, you can use rice flour too. Both will do exactly the same job. Make the batter crispy.
• I used Baking soda or cooking soda to bring more crunch. It is not mandatory, You can skip this step.
• Black salt is basically used to lift its taste.
• Don’t use more water than described in this recipe. As over use of water may get the batter thin and thin batter cannot make the exact coat over the chicken. Even the cover can be removed while frying.
• Must check the right temperature of the oil before putting the fritters into the oil. Otherwise the fritters may absorb more oil and not get the perfect cruch.
• Don’t over crowd the pan, keep a minimum distance between the pakoras.
• Fry the pakodas on slow heat, to perfectly cook the pakodas from inside. However, raise the heat before removing them from the pan, that process will help to remove the oil absorbed by the pakodas.
• Though today here I don’t use egg in making its batter. However, sometimes I use an egg, it makes pakoras more soft from inside.