Making soft, delicious and melt in mouth chicken shami kabab is easy now with this amazing recipe. All you need is chicken, chana dal, few spices, herbs and oil. Naturally gluten-free chicken shami kabab are kid and freezer friendly recipe.
You can serve chicken shami kabab as side dish with khatti dal or meethi dal. As a starter or as a snack with tea, coffee or juice. More serving options in Recipe Card below,
About This Recipe
Shami Kabab is a Nawabi delicacy. Like Mughal’s, Nawabs too were know for their extremely lavish food habits. If the Nawabs are known for their food choice, I give credit to Khansamas (The Royal Chefs). These are the people who always came up with unique, pleasing and tasteful recipes for their masters.
Shami kabab is invention of one of the khansama to please his master, who requested for high protein recipe which is tasty as well as easy to chew. If we read culinary history, we come across so many different theories and stories of how these recipes came to life.
Over the period, we adapted these recipes, made changes to suit our needs. But the true charm of the recipes is still alive in the writings, scripts and books.
Chicken Shami Kabab Recipe
The recipe of tender and meaty chicken shami kabab is close to mutton shami kabab recipe. Making shami kabab with chicken is very easy and the recipe I am sharing with you today is beginner’s recipe. So anyone with no prior knowledge in making shami kabab can make these easily.
Chicken Shami kabab recipe is like one bowl recipe. Mix all the ingredients, boil them, grind to smooth, shape and fry. Easy isn’t it?
Apart from this, we can easily freeze the shaped patties and they come handy when in hurry. Chicken shami kabab recipe is a perfect freezer friendly recipe.
Here, is a detailed list of main ingredients we need in making shami kababs,
Check Out The Video Recipe
Chicken Shami Kabab Ingredients
Chicken: You can use chicken pieces or mince (keema). These days chicken mince is easily available in online meat stores. Generally, chicken thigh or breast or combination of both is used in making chicken mince. Chicken mince (ground chicken) is low-fat and high in protein.
You can easily make chicken mince at home. Check below in the recipe notes section to know more. But I prefer using cube size chicken pieces.
Potato: Adds moisture, taste and texture. Adding potato will keep the kabab mixture soft and makes it melt in mouth. Shami will never be dry, if we add potato to it.
Split Chickpea | Chana Dal: Provides binding, texture and taste to shami kabab. When you are planning to make chicken shami kabab, soak chana dal for at least an hour prior to cooking. Soaking helps in cooking the dal fast and soft.
Onion: Adding finely chopped onion slices along with chicken pieces and chana dal will bring nice taste in the recipe. You an even add birista (fried onion). Add raw onion while cooking the shami mixture and fried onion after cooking the shami mixture, if using.
Dry Coconut Powder: Adding dry coconut powder is purely optional. But dry coconut powder will cut the smell of meat and give nice taste to kebabs.
Ginger-Garlic Paste: Like any other non-vegetarian recipe, this kabab recipe also calls for aromatic ginger-garlic paste. This will give taste, aroma and enhances the flavour of kebabs. Ginger-garlic paste also tenderizes the meat.
Garam Masala: Brings in flavour, taste and aroma in kebabs. Don’t forget to check my homemade garam masala recipe, which is perfect blend of spices and aroma.
Coriander & Mint Leaves: Adds aroma, herby refreshing taste to kebabs.
Other Ingredients
Apart from the ingredients mentioned above, we also need Oil, Green Chillies, Roasted Cumin Powder, Roasted Coriander Powder, Black Pepper Powder.
Why Should I Try This Recipe?
Do you really need a reason to try these delicious and easy chicken shami kababs? Then,
- Chicken shami kabab is easy to make.
- No need to pressure cook
- Freezer friendly recipe
- Kid-friendly recipe
- Gluten-Free
- High in protein
Recipe Notes
How To Mice Chicken Without A Meat Mixer or Grinder?
Take chicken breast or thigh pieces, Remove the fat. Cut into small cubes. Wash thoroughly and leave the pieces in a sieve for 30 minutes.
Now add these to a mixie jar and pulse until coarse. Do not pulse more, you will end up with fine paste of chicken meat instead of mince.
How To Mince Chicken Breast By Hand?
Alternatively, you can mince chicken breast by hand. To do so, first clean the chicken breast pieces, wash them thoroughly, pat dry.
Now keep the pieces on the kitchen chopping board and cut into small pieces of roughly 1 inch in size.
Bring all the pieces near and very carefully, with a very sharp knife cut the pieces into small.
Bring them all together and chop till, you end up with mince.
NOTE: I prefer using mixer for making chicken mince.
Generally, when we order chicken mince online, that mince will contain lot of fat. If there is an option to customise your order, then ask them to clean the fat and then turn it into mince.
If you are buying mince from local butcher, then ask them to make mince with breast or thigh pieces by removing excess fat.
How To Store Chicken Mince?
Add chicken mince to a zip lock bag, spread it evenly into a thin layer. Squeeze out the excess air.
Immediately store this in freezer. For better use, make 2-3 packs of chicken mince and freeze. You can easily defrost one pack and use, while other packs remain in freezer.
If stored properly in freezer, chicken mince stays good for 2 months.
Chicken Shami Kabab Recipe
Making soft, delicious and melt in mouth chicken shami kabab is easy now with this amazing recipe. All you need is chicken, chana dal, few spices, herbs and oil. Naturally gluten-free chicken shami kabab are kid and freezer friendly recipe.
Ingredients
- 250 g Chicken breast | boneless chicken cubes | chicken mince
- ½ cup Chana dal, wash and soak for 60 minutes
- 1 Onion, peeled and sliced
- 2 Green chillies, deseeded and chopped
- 1 tbsp. Garam Masala
- 2 tbsp. Red chilli powder
- ½ tbsp. Turmeric powder
- 3 tbsp. dry Coconut powder
- ½ tbsp. Blackpepper powder
- 1 tbsp. Ginger-Garlic paste
- ½ tbsp. roasted Cumin powder
- ½ tbsp. toasted Coriander powder
- 3-4 springs fresh Coriander leaves, chopped
- 5-6 fresh Mint leaves, chopped
- Salt as per taste
- Oil for frying
For Coating
- 1 Egg
- pinch of Salt
- pinch of Pepper powder
Instructions
How To Make Chicken Shami Kabab Recipe
Step 1: Clean & Wash Chicken
If using chicken breasts, then remove the fat and cut it into normal ice cube size pieces.
Wash them thoroughly and leave in a sieve to drain the excess water.
If using chicken mince, then clean the mince and wash it thoroughly and leave it in a fine sieve for 15-20 minutes.
Thoroughly wash and soak chana dal for at least one hour.
Peel the potato, cut into cubes, wash it and soak them in water for 10 minutes.
Step 2: Cooking
In a pot add chicken pieces (mince), soaked chana dal (drain the water) and potato cubes (drain the water).
To this add sliced onion, chopped green chillies, ginger-garlic paste and garam masala.
Now add red chili powder, turmeric powder, roasted cumin powder, roasted coriander powder, chopped coriander leaves and mix well.
Add ½ cup of water and leave this cook on medium flame for 5 minutes.
Cook covered on low flame till water is absorbed, potato and chana dal turn soft.
Turn off the flame and carefully remove the mixture on a plate.
Leave this to come down to room temperature.
Step 3: Grinding
Once the mixture is cool, add it to mixer jar and grind it coarsely. (without adding water)
Remove in a bowl and using fingers gently knead the mixture by adding finely chopped mint leaves.
Check for salt and adjust accordingly.
Step 4: Shaping
Divide the shami mixture into equal size balls.
Apply oil to your palms and gently flatten each ball with fingers (as shown in the picture) and set aside. Continue to do this with the remaining mixture till you complete all the shami mixture.
Step 5: Frying
You can either shallow fry or deep fry or air fry shami kababs.
In a bowl, crack open an egg. To this add salt and pepper powder. Whisk until frothy.
For shallow frying, add 2-3 tbsp. oil to a pan and when it is hot, reduce the flame and dip the shami kabab in egg mixture and carefully drop it in oil.
Add 3-4 shami kababs at a time depending on the size of the pan.
Shallow fry on medium flame till shami kabab turns nice golden brown on both the sides.
For deep frying, heat enough oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, reduce the flame and add shamis by dipping in egg mixture. Fry by turning in between. Fry till shamis turns nice brown on all the sides.
For air frying, pre-heat air fryer for 5 minutes at 200° C. Spray or brush the basket with oil.
Arrange 6-8 shami patties in the basket depending on the size of air fryer basket. Spray or brush oil and cook for 10 minutes on 200° C.
After 10 minutes, carefully turn the shami patties and cook for another 8-10 minutes. Air fry them until they turn nice brown on all sides.
Add love to make these chicken shami kabab taste ‘yummy’.
Notes
Freezing | Meal Prep Instructions:
The above recipe yields 15 chicken shami kababs. If you want to make these for big crowd, then you can store these kababs in two ways.
One is by storing the ground shami masala mixture (from step 2). Store the mixture in a clean and dry moisture free air-tight container in deep freezer. Stays good for 15 days.
Another method is by shaping the patties (from step 4) and lining them in zip lock bag. Do not over crowd them. Keep the bag in deep freezer. Stays good for 30 days.
Completely thaw the patties before frying them.
Notes
Serving Chicken Shami Kabab
Here are few of my favorite options to serve chicken shami kabab,
Serve with hot steamed rice and khatti dal or meethi dal.
Actually shami kabab tastes best with any dal rice recipe like sambar rice, rasam rice, tomato dal and rice, etc.
Stuff shami kabab in burger buns with generous topping of green chutney and tomato suace or mayo and make chicken shami bun kabab.
You can stuff chicken shami kabab in bread slices and make sandwiches.
Serve this as starter before main course and as a snack with tea, coffe or juice.
Chciken shami kabab is the best iftar and eid party recipe.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
15Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 108Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 42mgSodium: 146mgCarbohydrates: 4gFiber: 2gSugar: 1gProtein: 11g
The nutritional information provided is approximate and is calculated using online tools. Information can vary depending on various factors, but we have endeavoured to be as accurate as possible.
justine says
Easy to make with the kids, so good for lunchtime.
Elisa says
Love the recipe and this kind of food, in Mexico we have croquetas is a type of this Shami Kabab. Will make them really soon for the family. Thanks for the recipe 🙂
Sara Welch says
Enjoyed these for dinner last night and it was a savory success! Turned out delicious and crispy; definitely, a new favorite recipe!
Janie says
These are great for meal prepping my lunch for a few days. I loved the seasonings used. They bring out the flavors in the chicken.
Gina Abernathy says
Sounds like a very interesting recipe. The spices seem like a wonderful combination. Looks very tasty.