Coronation Chicken Recipe

Creamy Mayonnaise, Chutney and Curry Chicken Marinade

You’ll find this Coronation Chicken Recipe most useful especially when you have a large family to feed. The sweet and sour combination of creamy mayonnaise and yoghurt with curry powder and chutney is delicious as a chicken marinade recipe and it appeals to almost everyone.



Originally served at the Queen’s Coronation Lunch in 1953, this chicken dish was created by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume. The dish is served cold as a chicken salad recipe and goes very well with green salads and bread for a luncheon.

Coronation Chicken Recipe Ingredients

• 200ml plain yoghurt
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 10ml (2 tsp) ground cumin
• 5ml (1 tsp) ground coriander
• 5ml (1 tsp) Maldon salt
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste

• 1kg chicken breasts, skinless and boneless

  Coronation Sauce Ingredients:

• 100g yellow sultanas
• 15ml (3 tsp) mild curry powder
• 250ml (1 cup) good-quality mayonnaise
• 150ml plain yoghurt
• 15ml (1 tbsp) mango chutney
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 2 large mangoes, peeled and sliced

  Garnish:

• 60g flaked almonds, toasted
• fresh chives, finely chopped
• handful fresh watercress

How To Make Coronation Chicken

1. Mix together all the marinade ingredients and coat the chicken breasts well. Cover and leave in the refrigerator to marinate overnight. For the purposes of marinading chicken over night, I prefer to use a ziplock bag because this can be turned over in the fridge to allow all sides of the chicken to be coated in the marinade mix.

2. Once you are ready to cook the chicken, preheat the oven to 180 C.

3. Transfer the chicken and marinade to an oven dish and bake the chicken in the marinade, covered with foil, until cooked through. This should take about 30 minutes.

4. Remove the cooked chicken breasts from the oven, cut into small cubes or slices and set aside.

5. To make the Coronation sauce, combine all the ingredients except for the mango and mix well.

6. Gently mix the chicken slices and the mango into the sauce, reserving some mango slices to garnish.

7. Serve cold, garnished with the remaining mango, almonds, chives and watercress.