Authentic Chicken Rendang

How to make an easy authentic Chicken Rendang, a traditional Indonesian-Malaysian dry coconut curry stew.

Chicken Rendang is a rich, aromatic, and deeply spiced dry coconut curry that originates from Indonesia. Over time, it has become a beloved dish across Malaysia and Singapore, firmly cementing itself as a staple in Malay cuisine. It’s no surprise that Rendang was crowned the No. 1 best food in the world—twice! The dish topped CNN’s World’s 50 Best Foods list, and if you’ve ever tasted it, you know exactly why.

Traditionally, Rendang is made with beef, slow-cooked over low heat for hours until the curry transforms into a thick, caramelized paste bursting with bold, complex flavors. But if you don’t have hours to spare, this Chicken Rendang version is the perfect shortcut—it delivers all the rich flavours of an authentic Rendang in just 30 minutes!

If you’re up for the full experience, I also have a Beef Rendang recipe that sticks to the long cooking process and a more extensive ingredient list—perfect for when you want to go all out. But if you’re after something quick and delicious, this Chicken Rendang is the way to go.

Looking for an even easier version? Check out my Spicy Chicken Rendang, which uses a few cheat ingredients to cut down on prep time while still delivering incredible flavour. But if you want something closer to the traditional method, this recipe stays true to the authentic way of making Rendang—just with a faster approach!

Table of Contents

• Key Ingredients for Chicken Rendang
• Basic Rempah for Chicken Rendang
• How to make the Best Chicken Rendang?
• How to Level Up my Chicken Rendang
• Best Type of Pot to Use for Chicken Rendang
• How to Serve Rendang
• More Recipes Like This

Key Ingredients for Chicken Rendang

These are the key ingredients needed to make this chicken rendang:

• Bone-in Chicken: bone-in chicken is best to get flavourful chicken that will not turn dry in the cooking process.

• Coconut Milk: Coconut Milk or Coconut Cream is the base liquid for rendang. When cooked over low heat over a long period of time, the coconut milk caramelises and deepens in flavour, giving Rendang that dark brown appearance.

• Coconut Butter or Kerisik: This is probably the one ingredient to make this dish Rendang, instead of just a curry stew. Kerisik is a toasted, grated coconut pounded to a paste. This can be easily purchased in shops throughout Singapore and Malaysia. You can make this from scratch too, but it’s too much effort for me. Plus I’m not too proud to admit I’ve NEVER been able to make a good kerisik as what I buy! Hunt this down, it’s also easily available online.

Ingredients that help:

• Dry Spices: Cinnamon, Star Anise, Cloves and Cardamom Pods, otherwise known as ‘Empat Sekawan’ or Four Friends in Malay. These add a deeper, complex flavour to the Rendang.

• Palm Sugar (gula melaka): Coconut palm sugar has a caramelised flavour to it. If you can’t find palm sugar, use brown sugar. No brown sugar, just use sugar!

• Tamarind Paste (asam jawa): This adds a sweet tang and acidity to balance out the flavours of Rendang. I use tamarind paste, which are concentrated, ready-for-use, tamarind without the pulp. It’s a lot more convenient than the more traditionally used juice from tamarind pulp. If using tamarind pulp, a teaspoon of tamarind paste generally equates to juice from a handful or about two tablespoons of tamarind pulp. Add a bit of warm water to your pulp, and work your fingers through to release the pulp from the seeds. Strain, and use just the juice. Omit if you want a simplified dish.

• Makrut Lime Leaves (daun limau purut): This adds a citrusy flavour and amazing fragrance to the dish! Before adding to the dish, make sure to tear or bruise the leaves to release the flavour.

One of the biggest block stopping people from attempting any seemingly complicated dish is in rounding up the ingredients, but you never need the full list to make a GOOD FINAL DISH.

When I first attempted Rendang I definitely omitted some of the ingredients above, yet I TASTED RENDANG! It only helped boosted my confidence even more when I didn’t have as much ingredients (and commitment) to work with!

Basic Rempah for Chicken Rendang

I pared down the rempah base paste for the Chicken Rendang for the sake of simplicity. I omitted a few spices and these are the ones that you need for a good, but still flavourful Rendang.

• Onions or Shallots

• Garlic

• Ginger

You can stop here! These are all you need to make that rich paste. If you want more layers in flavour, these are the ingredients you can add:

• Dried Chillies or Dried Chilli Paste: If using dried chillies, prep the dried chillies before blending. Simply pour boiling water on the dried chillies until it softens and cut into smaller pieces for easier blending. If you have dried chilli paste, you can use it in place of the dried chillies. I used Asian spur chillies, but most red dried chilli peppers available to you will work for this, including fresno and serrano chillies.

• Galangal (lengkuas): Galangal or Blue Ginger is a root herb that is often described in the same vein as ginger, but completely different flavour profile. While ginger is a spicy herb, galangal is more of a fresh, citrusy flavour.

• Lemongrass: We just need the white inner core of the lemongrass, sliced for easier blending. See my post on ‘How to Prepare Lemongrass for Cooking’ for more information on how to do this.

• Fresh Turmeric or Turmeric Powder: I used turmeric powder for convenience, but you can use fresh turmeric as well. Generally a small, one-inch piece is equivalent to 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder.

• Candlenut (buah keras): This adds a nutty flavour to the rendang, while giving it a creamy texture. This is easily replaceable with macadamia nuts, or cashew nuts.

How to make the Best Chicken Rendang?

1. Blend the ingredients to make the Rempah, or Spice Base

I used a blender for this, add water or oil to the blender so it blends easily. Do not add too much, since this will prolong the rempah cook down timing later on.

2. Saute the Rempah

Constantly stir the rempah in oil with the dry spices until the ‘oil splits’, also known as pecah minyak. Read my post for more information on how to properly ‘pecah minyak’.

3. Add chicken

Add the bone-in chicken, and stir to coat with the rempah.

4. Add the rest of the ingredients.

Add the coconut milk or coconut cream, kerisik, and the seasonings and stir to combine. Adjust the amount of water according to the chicken amount. I usually do a 1:1 ratio of coconut milk to water. You just need enough to cover the chicken so that it has enough liquid to cook in. The Rendang should look like a curry at this stage.

5. Let it stew.

Let the Rendang come to a boil, before lowering the heat to a low to medium heat. Stir the pot every 5 minutes or so, to evenly distribute the coconut milk as it caramelises. The Rendang should turn darker and drier each time you stir.

Rendang is done once the chicken cooks through – or until the gravy is dried and darkened to your liking!

How to Level Up my Chicken Rendang

If you have time to spare and you want to make a proper, dark, caramelised Rendang, you can! Simply let it continue cooking for 1-2 hours, stirring frequently, until you achieve your desired caramelisation.

Unlike beef, which will hold its shape even with long stewing times, chicken might fall apart its bones when stewed for a long time. Some people don’t mind this, but if you want chicken pieces that stay intact, you can solve this a couple of ways:

– Pre-frying chicken with turmeric powder.

Coat the chicken pieces with turmeric powder and salt, and fry until the surface cooks. This will firm up the chicken surface, and will not break apart as easily in the stew.

– Remove the chicken pieces once they are cooked through.

At the 30-minute mark, the chicken would have been fully cooked through. Remove the chicken pieces and continue to cook the rendang sauce. Allow the remaining rendang sauce to caramelise until your preference, before adding back the chicken.

What if I want a Chicken Rendang with More Gravy?

Rendang is traditionally a dry curry, with not much sauce or gravy. If you want more liquid for your Rendang, simply add more water!

Best Type of Pot to Use for Chicken Rendang

For stewing, use a pot with high walls, in a heavy, quality material. This can best retain and maintain a consistent heat which is important for slow- and low-heat cooking such as with Rendang.

How to Serve Rendang

Rendang is best served with some hot, steaming white rice! If you want an elevated rice dish, try my Nasi Minyak!

You can also have it with various types of Malay rice cakes, such as lemang, lontong, ketupat or nasi impit, lemang or pulut kuning.

More Recipes Like This

If you like this recipe, you might love these too:

• The BEST Beef Rendang Recipe
• Opor Ayam | Indonesian White Curry
• Ayam Masak Merah | Spicy Tomato Chicken Stew

Authentic Chicken Rendang

Recipe by Sha

5.0 from 2 votes

Course: Recipes

Servings

2-3

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

How to make an easy authentic Chicken Rendang, a traditional Indonesian-Malaysian dry coconut curry stew.

Cook Mode

Keep the screen of your device on

Ingredients

• 600g Chicken

• 1 cup Coconut Cream or Coconut Milk

• 1 tsp Salt, or to taste

• 2 tsps Palm Sugar, or to taste (or sugar)

• 1 tsp Tamarind Paste

• 1 tbsp Coconut Butter or Kerisik

• 5-6 Makrut Lime Leaves

• 1 tbsp Cooking Oil, extra for sauteeing

• Dry Whole Spices

• 1 Cinnamon

• 2 Star Anise

• 3-4 Cloves

• 3-4 Cardamom

• Rempah Spice Paste, to blend:

• 1 Onion or Shallots, chopped

• 2-3 Garlic

• 1 inch Ginger, chopped

• 10 Dried Chillies, rehydrated OR 2 tbsp dried chilli paste

• 1 inch Galangal, chopped

• 1 Lemongrass, white inner core

• 1 tsp Turmeric Powder or 1 inch Fresh Turmeric

• 2 Candlenut

• 1/4 cup Water, for easier blending

• Garnish

• Fried Shallots

Directions

• Making the Rempah Aromatics Paste
• Roughly chop rehydrated dried chillies, onions or shallots, garlic, ginger, galangal and lemongrass for easier blending. Add all the ingredients to a blender, and blend to a fine paste. If paste is not blending easily, add water bit by bit until you get a smooth paste.
• Making the Rendang
• Add oil to pan. Once hot, lower heat and add in rendang aromatics paste with cinnamon, star anise, cloves and cardamom.
• Continuously stir fry the spice base for about 5 minutes over low heat, until it is fragrant and dries down slightly. If not using Cosmo Casserole, make sure to add more oil so that you can see ‘oil splitting’ or ‘pecah minyak’. This makes sure the rempah does not burn and is fully cooked. See my post on how to properly pecah minyak here.
• Add in chicken and stir to coat with the paste.
• Add coconut cream or coconut milk, water, kerisik, tamarind paste, salt, palm sugar and tear in the makrut lime leaves. Stir through to incorporate. Turn the heat up to a medium, and let this come to a boil.
• Once bubbly, lower the heat, and let it stew for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Stir through every 5 minutes to evenly distribute the coconut milk as it caramelises. The Rendang should turn darker with every stir. The longer it stews, the darker and drier the Rendang will be.
• Rendang is done once chicken is cooked, and you can serve this as is! Have more time? Let the coconut milk caramelise even more.

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