Published on May 2, 2015. Modified on Jan 23, 2024 by bakingqueen74. This post may contain affiliate links. 34 Comments

Slow Cooker Chicken Pasanda Curry

Mildly spiced and creamy, this slow cooker chicken pasanda, similar to a slow cooker korma, is easy to prepare and full of flavour. You’ll want to make it again and again!

Chicken curry with rice, coriander and sliced chilli on top, in a bowl.

Jump to:

What kind of curry is a pasanda?
Adapting pasanda for the slow cooker
Advantages of slow cooker curries
Ingredients
Step by step instructions
Recipe swaps
Sides
More curry recipes to try
You might also like
Recipe
Reviews

What kind of curry is a pasanda?

Pasanda is an Indian curry dish containing cream, yoghurt or coconut milk and almonds.

The name means “liked” or “favourite” as this mild curry is popular with young and old alike. It is quite close in terms of spice to a chicken korma, one of the milder curries.

If you like chicken tikka masala, this is similar in taste but a bit milder.

Bowl with curry and rice, a red chilli and garlic in the background.

Adapting pasanda for the slow cooker

As I wanted to make this mild chicken curry in my slow cooker, I swapped the cream or yoghurt normally used in the recipe for reduced-fat coconut milk, because cream or yoghurt can split, or curdle, in the slow cooker.

Dairy ingredients curdling is one of the few problems you can encounter when using a slow cooker.

Happily there are ways to avoid it, like here where I have used tinned coconut milk instead.

Another option to get around it is to only stir cream through at the end just before serving.

The coconut milk swap worked very well, producing a thick and creamy sauce when served. This is helped by the ground almonds and tomato puree, which act as thickeners too.

Curry rice bowl with chillis and chopped cilantro.

I make no claims as to the authenticity of my version of the chicken pasanda, but we all enjoyed the flavours, including the children!

It is also easy to adjust the level of spice in this recipe to suit your taste by reducing or increasing the amount of fresh chilli and chilli powder.

Taste the sauce as you prepare it (before adding the raw chicken) and remember that flavours normally become more muted by slow cooking.

You can add a dash more garam masala about half an hour before serving if needed.

Advantages of slow cooker curries

I love to make curries but the length of the list of ingredients and the number of steps can be overwhelming, especially if you don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen.

This slow cooker version is so simple because you can throw all of the ingredients into the slow cooker together if you are short on time, and still get great results.

For me, using the slow cooker to make curries is ideal, as you can forget about it for the rest of day while at work or out of the house.

Really popular with my family and also with my readers, this chicken pasanda curry is one I turn to over and over again as it always has great results.

It is also very tasty if you throw in some other vegetables – peas, baby corn and mushrooms work really well, and you can also bulk it up with sweet potato or butternut squash.

Ingredients

Here is a list of what you will need for this recipe. For the precise quantities please see the recipe card at the end of the post.

chicken breasts – I tend to buy whole chicken breasts and cut them up myself as this is cheaper than buying diced chicken, or choose chicken thighs for a cheaper option, it is easy to remove the skin and bone and dice them.
onion
red pepper
optional: other vegetables such as mushrooms, baby corn, butternut squash chunks etc
garlic cloves
ginger – I use small piece of fresh ginger or a tube of ginger puree.
red chilli – either fresh chillis or jarred “lazy” chilli
ground almonds – these help to thicken the sauce, and add flavour.
coconut milk – I use reduced-fat coconut milk if I have it, but standard tinned coconut milk is also fine if you prefer.
tomato purée – this also helps to thicken the sauce as well as adding colour.
spices: garam masala, ground turmeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, medium curry powder, chilli powder
coriander – a few leaves of fresh coriander are used to garnish.

Remember, while the list looks quite long, a lot of the ingredients are store cupboard spices.

Invest in small jars of these spices and you can use them in lots of different curry recipes in future. Dried spices last ages.

If you know you love curries and will use a lot of spices, you can look in the world food aisle at the supermarket where you can buy bigger bags of spices at bargain prices.

Step by step instructions

Step 1. Prepare the ingredients: measure out the spices, dice the onion, crush the garlic, chop the ginger (if using fresh), chop any vegetables you want to include.

Step 2. Place all of the ingredients in the slow cooker (except the fresh coriander).

Slow cooker pot filled with curry ingredients.

Step 3. Mix all the ingredients together well.

Then cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for approx. 6 hours.

Serve with rice and naan breads.

I like to use cauliflower rice to make this a low carb meal.

Tip:

If you have more time you could fry the onion in a little oil until soft, then add the garlic and ginger and cook for a minute more, then add the spices and fry for 1-2 minutes more until fragrant, before putting it in the slow cooker and adding the coconut milk and ground almonds to the chicken.

If not, you still get plenty of flavour just putting all the ingredients in and leaving it to cook slowly.

Recipe swaps

Swap chicken for Quorn pieces for a vegetarian version.
Replace the chicken with lamb for a lamb pasanda.
Adjust the spice level to suit you – mix the sauce ingredients in a bowl before adding it to the chicken and taste. You could add more or less red chilli and chilli powder depending on who you want to serve. Kids might want it less spicy, adults more so!
To make this curry even more creamy you could stir through a little single cream before serving – make sure you do this off the heat though so the cream doesn’t curdle.
Add in your preferred vegetables to bulk out the dish more and make it go further.

Sides

Basmati rice and mini coriander naans are our preference. I make my mini naans using this naan bread recipe.

Cauliflower rice is great for a lower carb option!

More curry recipes to try

For more tasty curry ideas, take a look at these other slow cooker curries:

Slow cooker turkey curry
Slow cooker lamb curry
Slow cooker coconut beef curry
Slow cooker chickpea and paneer curry
Slow cooker vegetable curry
Slow cooker coconut lentil curry from Recipes From a Pantry

Make sure you check out my Slow Cooker Category for loads more slow cooker recipes for families. Plus a whole loads of desserts!

Recipe