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    Home » Main Course

    Published: Dec 19, 2019 · Modified: Nov 15, 2022 by Wajiha · This post may contain affiliate links ·

    Pakistani Basic Chicken ka Salan – Chicken curry

    Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

    Basic Chicken curry or “murghi ka saalan” is something that literally ALL brown people have grown up eating. Although I don’t think anyone calls it murghi ka salan any more and we all just end up calling it Chicken ka Salan (cz amm….millenials??) But anywhooo…it is one of the oldest and bestest chicken curry recipe from Pakistan and also India I think. The curry is based on caramelized onions and yogurt and uses some very basic South Asian spices to bring you the ultimate comfort food.

    Its one of those dishes that you make when you can’t think of anything else. And the popularity is such that it classifies as weekend food, quick dinner food, weekday random meals and ALSO party food. I mean how even? But it is what it is! Paired best with? Zeera pulao rice or steamed rice, but I’ve also seen my dad and other people eat it with chapati (flat breads) too…soooo! you know? Fun fact, chicken handi, nauratan chicken and this chicken curry are currently our top 3 monthly meals.

    STEPS TO MAKE CHICKEN KA SALAN

    The first step is to fry onions. Ideally, red onions are best for frying or most South Asian curry bases but work with whatever you get your hands on.

    6 whole peeled red onions in a white plate

    Cut your onions into halves vertically and then slice them thin vertically as well as finely as you possibly can. ( You are probably using your gadgets to do this step)

    Throw these onions in a pot (aka pateeli) with 2 cups of oil. Now we aren’t going to use all the oil for our curry. In fact once the onions are fried we are going to remove pretty much all of it and set aside. But its important to fry the onions in more oil to get that nice crispy texture which is the base for this curry.

    sliced onions in oil frying for making chicken ka salan
    fried golden crispy onion slices for making chicken ka salan

    Add onions in the pot with oil and fry at medium to high flame. Once your onions reach this nice golden brown color, remove them from the oil and set it up on a plate. When your onions cools down, chuck them in a food processor and bring them to a nice crushed form. They will reduce in quantity.

    IMPORTANT: Don’t put yogurt or water in the processor while processing the onions as it will change the texture of the onions. And while other recipes do call for onions to be blended WITH yogurt (like dam keema) but this one in particular needs dry fried onions.
    fried onions in a a nutribullet and some in a plate, and some fried onions already processed in a bowl.

    Remove all the oil from the pot, and leave roughly about 5 6 tbsp behind.

    TIP: The remaining oil has a really nice sweet flavor of the onions and is perfect to use later while grilling steaks, chicken etc or while making pasta
    whole spices in a white plate

    Next, you are going to add whole spices as shown above, in the pot along with your washed chicken. Add in garlic ginger paste and saute your chicken and whole spices for about 2 3 mins at high heat or until your chicken turns white.

    raw chicken pieces in oil with whole spices
    pakistani spices and chicken pieces in oil in a stainless steel pot

    Then add all the powder spices, salt, red chili powder, turmeric powder and coriander powder. And just temper the spices at medium to high flame for 2-3 mins to remove the rawness of the spices

    TIP: This step is known as bhunayi in Urdu and is the reason why South Asian food tastes different than other cuisines. Raw spices cooked in water compared to oil tempered spices have a different taste so be sure to not skip this step.
    Adding yogurt in chicken ka salan

    Then reduce the flame to low. Add beaten yogurt and 1 cup of water and mix well. Then add crushed fried onions to the chicken.

    TIP: Use yogurt at room temperature to avoid curdling.
    adding crushed fried onions in Pakistani chicken curry

    Add another cup of water and cover the pot. Let it cook for a good 15 mins. After 15 to 20 mins, your curry will look something like this.

    murghi ka salan or pakistani chicken curry ready

    The oil would have seperated and come on top and the color would have deepend. Now you can fix the salt level and add 3 cups of water to create the perfect curry. You can also make it thinner if you like.

    Alternates, fixes and remixes

    Subtitutes

    • If you don’t want to use a cup of oil while frying the onions, you can skip that step and just fry the onions in as much as oil as you want (1/4 cup or 2 tbsp etc). But it might effect the taste over all.
    • You can use regular onions instead of red onions if they aren’t available to you.

    Fixes

    • Burnt onions – Unfortunately burnt onions or dark brown onions don’t really have a fix and you will have to discard them and start over. You might be able to use them as garnish for haleem or biryani if they are just dark brown.
    • Curdled yogurt – If your yogurt curdles in your gravy, put the gravy through a blender to fix it. But make sure to strain your gravy before putting it in the blender to catch any whole spices. Put the blended gravy back in the pot along with 1/4 cup of water and cook for another 5 mins. This should help with the curdled yogurt.

    Remixes

    • You can add 1 tomato to the gravy if you want to try a slightly different flavor profile.
    • You can prepare a beef curry with the exact same recipe.
    • You can add rice to this curry base to make a pulav/tahiri kinda dish.

    Is this freezer friendly?

    Absolutely! This is one of the perfect foods to be frozen. If you are making this as part of your meal preps, don’t add the water at the end and freeze the thick curry. Then whenever you are ready to eat, chuck the chicken directly in a pot along with the water you didn’t add last time, and in 20 mins it’ll be ready to eat!

    Ideally, any food that you want to freeze, shouldn’t go in the fridge at all. Decide whilst cooking and freeze as soon as the food cools down. This way the taste of your food will not change over time.

    The curry itself can last in the fridge for a week without alterations in taste.

    What to do with left Chicken ka salan?

    • Left over gravy can be used to make pulav rice.
    • Boil eggs and potatoes and add to left over gravy to make andey aloo ka salan.
    • Left over chicken can be used to make sandwiches, pasta, literally anything with shredded chicken.
    • Use left over chicken to make potato cakes.

    More Pakistani Chicken recipes

    • chicken malai boti platter
      Chicken Malai Boti
    • black plate with square nuggets on it placed on top of a pita bread. garnished with onion slices and lemon wit 2 small bowls of green and white dips on the side
      Tikka flavored Chicken Nuggets
    • Pakistani chicken tikka biryani
      Chicken Tikka Biryani
    • a close up of a platter of chicken cheddar kababs
      Cheddar Chicken Kabab
    murghi ka saalan

    Pakistani chicken curry – Murghi ka saalan

    A traditional Pakistani curry, made with an onion and yogurt base, seasoned with South Asian spices.
    4.79 from 38 votes
    Print Pin
    Course: Main Course
    Cuisine: pakistani, South Asian
    Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes
    Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes
    Total Time: 45 minutes minutes
    Servings: 6 servings
    Calories: 266kcal
    Author: Wajiha

    Ingredients

    • 1 medium chicken cleaned, washed and cut up into pieces
    • 6 small red onions or 4 cups of sliced onions
    • 1/2 cup oil
    • 1 cup yogurt at room temperature
    • 4 cups water
    • 2 1/2 tsp salt
    • 2 tsp coriander powder pisa wa dhaniya
    • 2 tsp red chili powder pisi wi lal mirch
    • 1/2 tsp Turmeric haldi
    • 1 tbsp ginger garlic paste or 1 tsp of each
    • 1/2 cinnamon stick
    • 4 green cardamom choti elaichi
    • 2 black cardamom bari elaichi
    • 8 whole black peppers sabit kaali mirch
    • 5 cloves long

    Instructions

    • In a pot, add sliced onions and oil. Fry the onions at medium to high flame until they turn light golden brown. Remove the onions from the oil and allow it to cool down.
    • In a chopper, chop the golden brown onions without water until they turn into crumbs. Set aside
    • Remove all the oil from the pot and only keep about 6 tbsp of oil in the pot.
    • Add the whole spices, chicken, ginger garlic paste to the pot and saute it at medium flame for 2 to 3 mins.
    • When the water from the chicken dries up, add all the powdered spices and saute for another 3 mins.
    • Reduce the flame to low and add in yogurt and onion crumble. Stir it a bit, add about 1 cups of water, cover the pot and let it simmer for 10 to 15 mins.
    • Check to see if all the onion crumble has dissolved and an oil layer has formed on top of the curry.
    • Add 3 more cups of water, cook for another 3 mins.
    • Adjust your salt, and consistency of the curry.
    • Garnish with chopped coriander and serve with rice, or flat bread.

    Notes

    Use the left over oil for roasting steaks or for pastas as it has a really nice onion infused flavor to it now.
    Use yogurt at room temperature to avoid curdling it in the gravy

    Nutrition

    Serving: 1servingCalories: 266kcalCarbohydrates: 21gProtein: 3gFat: 20gSaturated Fat: 2gPolyunsaturated Fat: 5gMonounsaturated Fat: 12gTrans Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 2mgSodium: 1017mgPotassium: 302mgFiber: 3gSugar: 12gVitamin A: 201IUVitamin C: 10mgCalcium: 112mgIron: 1mg
    Can’t wait to see your remakes! Tag meon IG with your pictures @butteroverbae
    « Top Recipes by Pakistani bloggers 2019
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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Sonia Hussain says

      April 30, 2025 at 11:14 pm

      Can you please provide the weight in grams of the onions?

      Reply
      • Wajiha says

        May 15, 2025 at 1:20 pm

        Hey Sonia! one medium onion is 150 gm in weight, hope that helps!

        Reply
    2. Priya Soorya says

      July 12, 2024 at 5:31 pm

      Excellent recipe, very well explained.

      Reply
      • Wajiha says

        July 15, 2024 at 8:51 am

        thankyou so much! glad you liked it

        Reply
    3. Razia says

      January 12, 2022 at 9:16 am

      Hi, would love to try this recipe. How many grams chicken is needed for the above recipe? Unsure about the conversion of “medium to large chicken” into grams 🙂 Thanks!

      Reply
    4. Amna Hanif says

      July 07, 2021 at 2:59 pm

      Hi!
      Just wanted to know if it’s possible to use pre fried onions in this recipe if we are short of time ?

      Reply
      • Wajiha says

        July 14, 2021 at 8:20 am

        oh absolutely! You can use pre-fried onions for all recipes that call for frying onions until brown

        Reply
    5. Faiza says

      June 10, 2020 at 7:23 pm

      Tried it for the first time today. I didn’t have yogurt so i had to work with tomatoes. And might i say it tasted absolutely magnificent. As good as my mom makes it. I don’t know how to cook at all so i just follow thhe recipes and my husband absolutely loved it. So mega props to you!! And I’ll definitely be following more of your recipes and your entire blog iA. Love the vibe of your website. And massive thanks to you for an amazing dinner. Cheers.

      Reply
      • Wajiha says

        June 11, 2020 at 5:07 am

        wow Faiza, I woke up to this in the morning and I have to say my heart feels so warm and happy right now! thankyouuuu so much! I am so glad your family enjoyed it! 🙂 if you ever need any help with a recipe just drop a comment on it and i’ll help out as best as I can! lots of love!

        Reply
    6. Mariam Pirzadah says

      April 05, 2020 at 6:06 pm

      So yummy ???????????? and really easy and tasty

      Reply
      • Wajiha says

        April 06, 2020 at 3:24 am

        🙂 yayyyy!!

        Reply
    7. Mariam Pirzadah says

      April 05, 2020 at 6:05 pm

      So yummy ???????????? and really easy

      Reply
    8. MA says

      February 22, 2020 at 5:22 pm

      Followed this recipe and it totally delivered. Yum!! Saving it with my mom’s recipe to alternate between two from now on 🙂

      Reply
      • Wajiha says

        February 23, 2020 at 6:03 am

        omg! I am an alternate to your mom’s recipe? wow! that’s appreciation at its best! thankyou!!

        Reply
    9. Chiranjib Pradhan says

      January 29, 2020 at 7:55 am

      A very nice recipe and easy. also looking good.

      Reply
      • Wajiha says

        January 29, 2020 at 7:53 pm

        Thankyou Chiranjib!

        Reply
    4.79 from 38 votes (38 ratings without comment)

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    Hey there! I am Wajiha, the blogger and cook behind Butter over Bae.
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