Forget Pasta Sauce: A More Flavorful Alternative For Spaghetti Night

There's a long list of food combinations that sound bizarre but taste delicious, like chili crisp and ice cream, caramel and fish sauce, fried eggs and grape jelly, or even instant ramen and milk. So, while you might flinch when this pasta sauce replacement is revealed in a moment, we ask for some patience as we make our case. While a simple spaghetti with marinara would rank high on the list of ultimate comfort foods, if you're feeling experimental, a more flavorful alternative for pasta sauce is chicken tikka masala.

Tikka masala is a rich, flavor-packed dish with mysterious origins that traverse the Indian subcontinent and the British Isles. It features tender cubes of chicken marinated in yogurt and spices, and then cooked in a tandoor, a type of oven that dates back to the age of pyramids. The char-grilled cubes of chicken are then simmered in a creamy, gently spiced, tomato-based sauce. While it's usually accompanied by naan bread or rice, stirring it into a bowl of cooked spaghetti works splendidly. Make sure there's enough sauce to coat all the pasta evenly, then garnish with some cream and chopped spring onions. The firm, springy, and slightly chewy texture of the pasta is the perfect carrier for the smoky, silky curry and juicy chunks of chicken. 

If you're finding it too hard to wrap your head around this combination, think of it as an Indian version of a roasted tomato and chipotle cream pasta, or a Western take on the string hoppers and coconut-based curries you'll find across Southern India and Sri Lanka.

The perfect chicken tikka masala strikes a delicate balance. The smokiness and spices from the grilled chicken should cut through the sweet and tangy tomato sauce. Meanwhile, the sauce shouldn't be so creamy that it overpowers the acidity of the tomatoes. Use just enough cream to give it a rounded, velvety finish. If you have a little time to spare, using homemade garam masala will take your tikka masala to the next level, too. Otherwise, should you want to give your tikka masala sauce a slightly bitter, earthy edge, stir in some dried fenugreek leaves right at the end. 

We also have an important tip for cooking the chicken. It's unlikely you have access to a tandoor, but if you have a grill handy, use that to cook the chicken until it develops a nice char. If you don't have a grill, you can also cook the chicken in a hot skillet, but make sure it forms a caramelized crust on all sides. While you could finish the dish off in a saucepan, making the tikka masala in a slow cooker will give you a restaurant-quality finish. 

If you don't have the time or inclination to make tikka masala from scratch, but still want to try this exquisite combination, the good news is that there are several store-bought tikka masala sauce options. Maya Kaimal's version is the absolute best tikka masala sauce you can buy in a store, and if you can't get your hands on that, we've got a list of 10 popular brands, ranked worst to best.