Spicy and Saucy Tangra Chilli Chicken | Kolkata Style
on Oct 09, 2026
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This Tangra chilli chicken brings the flavours of Kolkata’s famous Chinatown into your kitchen. It’s spicier and saucier than regular chilli chicken, and the air fryer gets the chicken perfectly crispy without deep-frying.
This Tangra chilli chicken has been making our Indo-Chinese nights at home so much better. If you’ve had regular chilli chicken a hundred times by now and it’s started to feel a bit dull, the Tangra version from Kolkata’s Chinatown is going to bring that excitement back again. It’s spicier, saucier, and the flavour of the sauce is so much deeper than what you get from a standard chilli chicken recipe.
We already have our Chinese chilli chicken dry on the blog, which my family loves, but ever since I made this Kolkata chilli chicken recipe version, it’s been a tough competition between the two. Try both and see which one your family picks.
Table of contents
Tangra Chilli Chicken Ingredients
- Chicken Thighs: Boneless, cut into ¾ inch cubes. Thighs stay juicier than breast after air frying.
- Marinade: Maida, cornflour, grated garlic, vinegar, egg, and salt. This coating is what gives the chicken its crispy exterior and flavor that holds up in the sauce.
- Sauce Mix: Dark soy sauce, tomato ketchup, red chilli sauce, oyster sauce, chicken broth paste, cornflour, and water. The combination of all these sauces is what gives Tangra chilli chicken its signature flavour that regular chilli chicken doesn’t have.
- Stir-fry aromatics: Garlic, ginger, and green chillies sliced diagonally.
- Vegetables: Onion petals, green and red capsicum. They get a quick stir-fry on high heat so they stay crunchy.
- Spring Onion Greens: For garnish.
- Oil: For brushing the air fryer basket and stir-frying.
Richa’s Top Tips
- Marinate the chicken for at least 30 minutes. The maida and cornflour coating needs time to set so it crisps up properly in the air fryer. A rushed marinade means the coating slides off, and you lose that crunch.
- Air fry in stages, finishing at 200°C. The initial fry at 180°C cooks the chicken through, and the final 2-3 minutes at 200°C gives it that deep golden, crispy finish that survives being tossed in the sauce.
- Keep the stir-fry on high heat and move fast. Everything in the wok happens quickly. The garlic, ginger, and chillies need just 30 seconds, and the onions and capsicum need a minute or two at most. If you lower the heat or cook too long, the vegetables go soft and lose their crunch.
- Mix the sauce ingredients ahead of time in a bowl. Once the stir-fry starts, things move fast, and you don’t want to be measuring sauces while the wok is smoking. Having the sauce mix ready to pour in saves time and stress.
- Don’t let the chicken sit in the sauce too long. Toss it in, cook for about 2 minutes, and serve immediately. The longer the chicken sits in the sauce, the softer the coating gets. You want that contrast between crispy chicken and saucy gravy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Tangra chilli chicken comes from Kolkata’s Chinatown, an area called Tangra, where Chinese-Indian families have been cooking Indo-Chinese food for decades. The sauce uses a more complex mix of dark soy, oyster sauce, ketchup, and chilli sauce along with generous amounts of green chillies, which gives it a deeper, bolder flavour than the standard chilli chicken you get at most restaurants.
Yes. Deep fry the marinated chicken pieces in hot oil until golden and crispy, about 3-4 minutes. Drain on paper towels and then toss in the sauce as usual. The air fryer is a healthier alternative that uses much less oil, but deep frying gives you an equally crispy result.
Paneer cubes, firm tofu, or cauliflower florets all work well with this same sauce and method. For paneer and tofu, coat them in the same marinade and air fry until golden. For cauliflower, our bang bang cauliflower uses a similar approach, and the Tangra sauce would work beautifully with it.
Storage Tips
- In the fridge: Store the air-fried chicken and the sauce separately in airtight containers for up to 2 days. Keeping them apart prevents the coating from going soggy. When ready to eat, reheat the sauce, crisp the chicken in the air fryer for 2-3 minutes, and toss together fresh.
- Freezing: The air-fried chicken freezes well on its own for up to two weeks. Thaw overnight in the fridge and crisp up in the air fryer before tossing in freshly made sauce. The sauce is best made fresh as the flavour dulls after freezing.
- The stir-fry vegetables: Best made fresh every time. Reheated onions and capsicum lose their crunch and turn limp, which takes away from the whole dish.
Serving Ideas
This chilli chicken Bengali recipe pairs best with rice or noodles. Here are our favourites from the blog:
- With Egg Fried Rice: The most classic pairing. A plate of egg fried rice with saucy Tangra chicken on top is a proper Indo-Chinese meal.
- With Chilli Garlic Noodles: If you want noodles instead, these spicy, garlicky noodles with the Tangra chicken on the side are an incredible combination.
- With Hakka Noodles: For something milder alongside the spicy chicken, regular hakka noodles let the Tangra sauce take centre stage.
- As part of an Indo-Chinese spread: Serve this with honey chilli potatoes and veg spring rolls for a proper Chinese dinner at home.
Customisation Ideas
- Make it drier: Reduce the water in the sauce mix to about ¼ cup instead of ¾ cup for a drier, stickier version that works great as a party starter.
- Make it with paneer or tofu: Cube them to the same size, coat in the same marinade, and air fry until golden. The Tangra sauce works just as well with both.
- Add cashews: A handful of roasted cashews tossed in at the end adds a crunch that pairs really well with the saucy chicken. Common in a lot of Kolkata-style Indo-Chinese restaurants.
- Use different vegetables: Baby corn, spring onions, and mushrooms all work well in the stir-fry alongside or instead of the capsicum and onions.
Did You Know?
Kolkata’s Tangra is the only Chinatown in India, and one of the oldest in the world. Chinese immigrants, mostly Hakka people from Guangdong province, settled in Kolkata in the late 18th century. They originally worked in leather tanneries and shoe-making, and the food they cooked at home gradually blended Chinese techniques with Indian spices and ingredients. That fusion is what we now call Indo-Chinese food, and Tangra is where it was born. The chilli chicken, manchurian, and fried rice that every Indian restaurant serves today can all be traced back to the kitchens of this small neighbourhood in East Kolkata.
Once you make Tangra style chilli chicken, there’s really no going back to the regular version. Fair warning. Tag me on Instagram @my_foodstory when you make it, I’d love to see how yours turns out.
Watch Tangra Chilli Chicken Recipe Video
Tangra Chilli Chicken
Ingredients
- 500 grams boneless chicken thighs, cut into ¾ inch cubes
For marination
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup all purpose flour / maida
- ¼ + ⅛ cups cornflour
- 2 teaspoons grated garlic
- 1 teaspoon vinegar
- 1 large egg
For sauce mix
- 1 ½ tablespoons dark soy sauce
- 3 ¾ tablespoons tomato ketchup
- 3 tablespoons red chilli sauce
- 1 ½ tablespoons oyster sauce
- 1 ½ teaspoons chicken broth powder
- ¾ teaspoon cornflour
- ¾ cup water
For stir fry
- 1 ½ tablespoons finely chopped garlic
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger
- 8-9 green chillies, sliced diagonally
- 1 medium onion, cut into petals
- ½ green capsicum, cut into ¾inch cubes
- ½ red capsicum, cut into ¾inch cubes
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped spring onion greens
Instructions
Marinating chicken
- Add chicken to a bowl, add all the marination ingredients, give a good mix and set aside to marinate at least for 30 minutes
Sauce mix
- Add all ingredients for sauce mix to a bowl, whisk well and set aside.
Air frying chicken
- Preheat the air fryer to 180C and brush the basket with oil. Arrange the marinated chicken with some gap between each other. Brush with oil. Air Fry at 180C for 7 minutes, flip once, air fry at 180C for 5 minutes and for 2-3 minutes at 200C, till they turn golden from outside.
Making tangra chicken
- Heat oil in a wok or pan, add ginger, garlic and green chillies and saute on high for 30 seconds. Add onions, capsicums and saute on high for a minute or 2 till they get roasted. add air fried chicken and saute for a minute on high. Add sauce mix and cook on medium for 2 minutes while stirring constantly. Garnish with spring onion greens and serve.
Video
Nutrition
This article was researched and written by Harita Odedra.
