Mix together chicken, yogurt, garlic, ginger, cilantro, salt, garam masala, cayenne, cumin, coriander, paprika, and let the chicken marinate for an hour or up to 24 hours. If you're using chicken breast, give it at least an hour for the yogurt to marinate the chicken
When you're ready to cook this, heat a skillet, and when it's hot, add two tablespoons of ghee. You want a skillet that's large enough to let your chicken rest in a single layer across the pan, or be ready to cook it in batches. You want to quick cook this at high heat, frying in the ghee, not braise this.
Carefully place the chicken in the skillet, and after 3-4 minutes, using tongs, turn the pieces to sear the other side. Once both sides are seared, you can reduce the heat a little to finish cooking the pieces, but all in all, you're looking at about 10 mins at most in the skillet, especially if you cut into bite-sized pieces as instructed
Spritz the lemon juice across all the chicken right before serving.
Air fryer instructions
If you're trying to avoid fat, you can cook this in an air-fryer at 400F for 12 minutes, turning half way through. They're a little dryer than the skillet method but the meat is still tender due to the yogurt marinade.
Spritz the lemon juice across all the chicken right before serving.
Marinate that chicken with yogurt for as long as you can, up to 24 hours. The lactic acid in dairy helps to break down the protein and tenderizes it just beautifully. This is especially needed if you're using chicken breast. But honestly, sometimes I just marinate for 30 minutes and it turns out just fine.
If you're dairy-free or kosher, use lemon juice instead of the yogurt to provide the same tenderizing. You can also substitute oil instead of the ghee.
Adjust the cayenne pepper to your family's taste. Remember you can always add cayenne pepper afterward, and the presence of the ghee coating each piece helps the cayenne adhere to it well, so you can spice up your portion after you've dished out portions for the non-spice tolerators in your family.
Use ghee if possible as it has a high smoke point, which makes these chicken bites sear like champs. Here's an EASY recipe to make your own ghee and I'll post the video here as well.