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Is Chicken Tikka Masala Indian or British? The Disputed Origin
It is on every Indian menu in America, but the dish most likely took shape in a British curry house. Who made it first is still argued.
Chicken tikka masala is most likely a British creation built on an Indian dish. Chicken tikka comes from the Indian subcontinent; the creamy tomato sauce is usually credited to Ali Ahmed Aslam at the Shish Mahal in Glasgow in the 1970s. That claim is disputed: rival cooks in Glasgow, elsewhere in Britain and in India all say they got there first.
The Glasgow story
The best-known version goes like this. Ali Ahmed Aslam, who was born in Pakistan and grew up in Glasgow, opened the Shish Mahal in the city's West End in 1964. In the 1970s, he told the AFP news agency, a customer sent back his chicken tikka as too dry, so the kitchen cooked it in a sauce of yogurt, cream and spices.
Aslam died in December 2022, aged 77, and the restaurant closed for 48 hours in his honor. The BBC's report put it carefully: the story cannot be proved with certainty. In 2009 a Glasgow MP, Mohammad Sarwar, pushed for EU protected status for the city's version. The bid failed, partly because other restaurants around the UK also claimed the dish.
The other claims
Food historian Peter Grove told Roads & Kingdoms in 2014 that the Shish Mahal could not be first: another Glasgow restaurateur, Sultan Ahmed Ansari of the Taj Mahal, said he made the dish in the late 1950s. Birmingham, London and Newcastle cooks have their own claims too.
In India, Delhi street-food writer Rahul Verma rejects the Glasgow story and says he tasted the dish in Punjab or Uttar Pradesh earlier in the 1970s. Others point to a Shahi Chicken Masala recipe in Mrs Balbir Singh's Indian Cookery, published in 1961, as an early ancestor.
The soup detail is a myth
You may have heard that the first sauce was a can of Campbell's tomato soup. Grove says he and restaurateur Iqbal Wahhab made that detail up as a joke for journalists, and it spread worldwide. Aslam's own account mentions yogurt, cream and spices, not soup.
The roots: chicken tikka and butter chicken
Chicken tikka, boneless pieces marinated in yogurt and spices and roasted in a tandoor, is a dish of the Indian subcontinent. Grove believes the sauced version descends from butter chicken, credited to the Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi after the 1947 Partition. Our Indian Butter Chicken tells that story.
Even butter chicken's origin is contested. In 2024 Moti Mahal's owners sued a rival Delhi restaurant run by the heirs of a former partner, Kundan Lal Jaggi, over who invented it, Al Jazeera reported. We found no reported ruling.
In 2001, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook called tikka masala "a true British national dish," adding that the tikka is Indian and the sauce was added for British diners who wanted gravy. Our Chicken Tikka Masala is the curry-house style, and the curry collection sets the two side by side.
Questions people ask
Is chicken tikka masala the same as butter chicken?
They are close cousins: both are charred, yogurt-marinated chicken in a tomato and cream sauce. Butter chicken is credited to Delhi and leans on butter; tikka masala is the British curry house version, and recipes for both vary widely.
Is there one correct chicken tikka masala recipe?
No. Roads & Kingdoms reported that when Glasgow sought protected status, nearly 50 common recipes were circulating in Britain with only the chicken in common. That variety is one more sign the dish evolved in many kitchens at once.
Was chicken tikka masala really invented in Glasgow?
Possibly. The Shish Mahal claim is the most famous, but it rests on Aslam's own account, an earlier Glasgow restaurant claimed it first, and the 2009 bid to make it official failed.
Parts of this history are disputed. Where sources disagree, we say so.
Sources
- Nadeem Badshah, The Guardian, "Ali Ahmed Aslam, inventor of chicken tikka masala, dies at 77" (December 21, 2022)
- BBC News, "Glaswegian who 'invented' chicken tikka masala dies" (December 22, 2022)
- Mark Hay, Roads & Kingdoms, "Who Owns Chicken Tikka Masala?" (May 5, 2014)
- Robin Cook, speech to the Social Market Foundation, extracts in The Guardian (April 19, 2001)
- Sarah Shamim, Al Jazeera, "Butter chicken battle: How the dish brought two Indian restaurants to court" (February 17, 2024)
More food facts
Cook it
Chicken Tikka Masala
Spice-rubbed chicken breasts coated in garlicky yogurt and charred under the broiler, then cut up and stirred into a creamy, gently spiced tomato masala sauce: the British curry house favorite made at home.
Indian Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani)
Yogurt-coated chicken thighs broiled until charred at the edges, then folded into a smooth, gently spiced tomato sauce finished with cream and butter, the Delhi restaurant classic made with a home broiler instead of a tandoor.
Home-Style Indian Chicken Curry (Tamatar Murghi)
Raghavan Iyer's everyday chicken curry: onion, garlic and ginger browned in a skillet, a spice blend you grind yourself, tomatoes and a splash of half-and-half blended into a velvety orange sauce, with chicken simmered in it until just done.
Takeout-Style Chinese Chicken Curry
A takeout-style copycat from no particular restaurant: velvety stir-fried chicken and soft onion wedges in a glossy, bright yellow curry sauce thickened with cornstarch, ready in 20 minutes to spoon over rice.