Meal Prep Chicken Tikka

I haven't fixed how I eat. I'm still working on it.

It's an ongoing thing. Some weeks are good, some aren't. And the whole time, my feed keeps serving me meal prep videos. Containers lined up on a counter. Plain chicken, plain rice, plain broccoli. Sunday discipline in plastic. It always looked like a punishment, so I always kept scrolling.

Then a couple weeks ago, @vatsavcooks showed up with a chicken tikka rice bowl. Same meal prep format, but the spices were mine. Stuff I grew up with. For once the algorithm handed me something I actually wanted to make instead of something I was supposed to choke down. So I built my own version.

It starts with the cut. Boneless thighs, not breast. Part of that is taste. Thighs just taste better to me, and growing up we never really cooked with breast, so thighs are what I know. The other part is practical. Thighs stay juicy after a night in the fridge and a reheat. Breast turns to chalk by day two. That's the whole game with meal prep. Pick the cut that survives.

The marinade does the heavy lifting. Yogurt tenderizes and carries the spice. Ghee keeps it rich. Then the spices. Kashmiri chili for color without melting your face. Regular red chili for the actual heat. Coriander and garam masala for warmth. No lemon in the marinade. The yogurt is already doing the acid work, and lemon on top of yogurt can turn the texture weird.

The only other oil is a quick spray of avocado oil right before it goes in the fryer. That's it. The marinade already has the ghee, so you don't need to drown it.

I decided to use an air fryer to cook this up. It just seemed like the easiest way to do this. But I suppose there are 20 different ways to do it. Ten minutes at 380, then a blast at 400 to get char on the edges. That char is the closest thing to tandoor flavor you'll get in an apartment kitchen.

The finish is the trick most people skip. Chaat masala dusted on straight out of the fryer, while it's still hot. Rub it between your palms so it falls evenly. It hits with this tangy, funky, slightly sulfurous thing that makes the whole bowl taste like it came from a street cart, not a meal-prep container.

Cook what you need now. Keep the rest raw, sitting in the marinade, and cook it the next day. It actually gets better overnight. The spice sinks in deeper.

Built for rice bowls. Good in a wrap. Honestly good eaten straight off the rack while you're supposed to be plating it. It's the first meal prep I've actually looked forward to. For me, that counts as progress.