You can add the main ingredient/s of choice to this jalfrezi sauce.
I have a delicious chicken jalfrezi sauce recipe in my cookbook ‘The Curry Guy’. That recipe for Jalfrezi sauce serves four.
In this jalfrezi sauce recipe, I will show you how the famous BIR (British Indian restaurant) curry is made at most restaurants. This recipe is for a curry house portion to serve 1 to 2 people.
Or even more if you’re sharing a selection of BIR curries.

You can add the main ingredient of your choice to this jalfrezi sauce. I added pre-cooked chicken.
What main ingredient should go into the sauce?
That is completely up to you. Just like when you go out for a curry at your favourite curry house, where you have a selection of main ingredients to choose from, that’s what you can do with your homemade jalfrezi sauce too.
Popular options are chicken tikka, lamb tikka, king prawns and paneer.
The main thing to consider when deciding which main ingredient to use is the time it takes to cook them.
Use this jalfrezi sauce recipe with pre-cooked ingredients…
At curry houses around the UK and the world for that matter, pre-cooked ingredients are used. The reason for this is simple… you want the ingredients to be deliciously tender when served.
If you were to add raw lamb or beef to this recipe, for example, it could take up to an hour for the meat to become tender.
So at curry houses, they pre-cook their chicken, meat and harder vegetables such as potatoes so that all they have to do is heat them up in the sauce.
Some ingredients cook quite quickly so you could actually cook prawns and even chicken from raw but you will be missing out on the amazing flavours you get from using tandoori marinated ingredients.
That said, pre-cooking your main ingredients can add amazing flavour to your curry.
Base Sauce (gravy) is used to speed up the cooking process too.
The base sauce idea was developed by curry house chefs to speed up the process of cooking their different sauces.
From the mildest korma to this mildly spiced jalfrezi sauce, right up to the spiciest phal, the base sauce is used to speed up the cooking process.
One of my ‘go to’ recipes for base sauce is right here and it is exactly as I’ve seen it made at hundreds of curry houses.
Do I have to make and use a base sauce to make this recipe?
The answer is yes and no. If you want your jalfrezi sauce to be exactly as you would expect from the best curry houses, then please make the sauce!
If you don’t have time or the will to make the base sauce, you could try this jalfrezi sauce recipe without the base.
Simply fry up the onions, peppers and other ingredients and add water or stock.

Dig in!
If you like this jalfrezi sauce recipe, you might like to try some of these curry house recipes too…
Tikka masala sauce
Korma sauce
Pasanda sauce
Chasni sauce
Chilli garlic sauce
Ceylon sauce
Pathia sauce
Keema sauce
Bhuna sauce
Methi sauce
Madras sauce
Vindaloo sauce
Phaal sauce
A nice squeeze of lime juice is a nice addition. As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.Jalfrezi Sauce Recipe - BIR Curry Hour Style
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Hi, in your book you use slightly different ingredient labels to this. Also in the book a few recipes such as the jalfrezi it says to add cooking stock from the pre made chicken. Is their a substitute that could be used instead? Such as normal supermarket chicken stock or the equivalent amount of base gravy.
Also I’m making a small batch of base gravy from the book. Heating it ina. Big Saucepan with a lid. How long would you suggest cooking it for?
Thanks
Hi Adam
You can certainly use a chicken stock cube if that is all you have on hand. You can also use the base gravy.
I cook my base gravy in a large pan for around 1.5 – 2 hours.
Thanks
Dan