Fakeaway Fridays: Recreate Your UK Takeaway Favourites

Fakeaway Fridays: Recreate Your UK Takeaway Favourites

Friday night. The week is done, the sofa is calling, and that familiar itch to ring the local curry house or dial up a Chinese is already tugging at your wallet. The average UK household spends around £30–£50 on a single takeaway order — and that figure climbs steeply if you're feeding a family or adding drinks and extras. Over a year, that's an eye-watering sum quietly draining your account.

Enter the fakeaway: home-cooked versions of your favourite takeaway dishes that are cheaper, often healthier, and — with the right recipe — genuinely hard to tell apart from the real thing. This Friday, we're starting with the undisputed king of British takeaways: chicken tikka masala.

Why Bother Making It Yourself?

Beyond the obvious cost savings (more on those in a moment), cooking at home gives you complete control over what goes into your food. You can dial back the salt, skip the artificial colouring, and use better-quality chicken. There's also something deeply satisfying about recreating a dish you assumed required a tandoor oven and thirty years of professional experience — and discovering it didn't.

If you're trying to get your household finances in better shape, small habitual changes add up quickly. Switching just one takeaway per week for a homemade fakeaway could put more than £1,500 back in your pocket annually. If you're also reviewing other outgoings — things like broadband, insurance, or energy bills — a comparison site like QuidCompare can help you see where you might be overpaying across a range of financial products, so your Friday night savings are part of a broader picture of smarter spending.

Chicken Tikka Masala — The Nation's Favourite

Ingredients (serves 4)

For the chicken marinade:

• 600g boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into chunks
• 150g full-fat natural yoghurt
• 2 tbsp tikka masala paste (shop-bought is absolutely fine)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1 tsp fine salt

For the masala sauce:

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil or ghee
• 1 large onion, finely diced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, grated
• 2 tbsp tikka masala paste
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 150ml double cream
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• Salt to taste
• Fresh coriander to serve

Method

1. Marinate the chicken. Combine the yoghurt, tikka paste, cumin, paprika, lemon juice, and salt in a bowl. Add the chicken pieces, mix well to coat, and leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes — overnight in the fridge if you can manage it.

1. Cook the chicken. Heat your grill or oven to its highest setting. Arrange the marinated chicken on a foil-lined baking tray and grill for 10–12 minutes, turning halfway, until lightly charred at the edges and cooked through. Set aside.

1. Build the sauce. Heat the oil or ghee in a large, deep frying pan or casserole over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently for 8–10 minutes until soft and golden. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

1. Add the spices. Stir in the tikka paste, ground coriander, and garam masala. Cook for 1–2 minutes until fragrant — this step is important; it toasts the spices and deepens the flavour.

1. Add the tomatoes. Pour in the chopped tomatoes, add the sugar, and season with salt. Simmer on a low heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened and darkened.

1. Finish with cream. Stir in the double cream and bring back to a gentle simmer. Add the grilled chicken pieces and cook for a further 5 minutes to let the chicken absorb the sauce.

1. Serve. Scatter with fresh coriander and serve alongside fluffy basmati rice, warmed naan (shop-bought is fine — no judgement here), or both.

Tips and Variations

Get ahead: The sauce freezes brilliantly. Make a double batch at the weekend and freeze half in portions for a genuinely effortless weeknight dinner.

Make it lighter: Swap the double cream for coconut cream or a half-and-half blend with natural yoghurt. You'll lose a little richness but gain a slightly fresher, lighter result.

Vegetarian version: Replace the chicken with paneer, butter beans, or a combination of cauliflower and chickpeas. Roast them in the same tikka marinade before adding to the sauce.

Smokier flavour: A quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika in the sauce, alongside a pinch of fenugreek, gets you closer to the chargrilled, slightly smoky depth you associate with a good restaurant version.

Rice shortcut: Toast your basmati in a dry pan for two minutes before adding water. It takes on a nuttier flavour and the grains stay separate.

Cost Per Serving

Compare that to a typical takeaway chicken tikka masala — usually £11–£14 for a single portion once delivery fees and a tip are factored in — and the arithmetic is obvious. You're saving roughly £10 per person, every single time.

The Bigger Picture

Fakeaway Fridays aren't about deprivation. You're not giving up the thing you enjoy — you're just making it yourself, spending a fraction of the cost, and honestly, often eating something better. Once you've nailed tikka masala, the same logic applies to salt-and-pepper chips, crispy aromatic duck pancakes, katsu curry, or a proper doner wrap made at home.

The money you save is real. Put it somewhere useful, whether that's a rainy day fund, a family day out, or just the satisfaction of knowing your Friday night cost less than a round of coffees.