National Curried Chicken Day - Fun Facts, Recipes and More!

It’s National Curried Chicken Day! January 12 is a day set aside to honor that most spicy of main courses – chicken curry.

From Asia to the Caribbean, this dish has a huge following among those who like a bit of heat in their food.

Keep reading to learn what curried chicken is, some fun facts about this delicious food, and a list of recipes to try.

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What is curried chicken?

Curried chicken is a stew-like dish made with chunks of chicken with vegetables which has been flavored with a blend of spiced called “curry powder.”

The most commonly used spices in most curry powders are cumin, coriander and turmeric. Curries are often served with papadums or Naan bread.

Curries are very popular in Asia and India but the growing populations of Indians around the world has made the food a hit with most other countries as well.

Fun facts about curry

Brush up on your knowledge of curry with these fun facts.

The word curry comes from a South-Asian word Kori, which is a sauce with cooked meat or fish.
Curries are very popular in the UK and have been for a long time. The first curry restaurant opened up in 1810 in London.
The world’s largest curry has been mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was made in 2015 in Singapore and weighted 33,838.9 pounds.
The hottest curry is Chicken Naga. The dish contains lots of naga pepper seeds which measure 855,000 on the Scoville Scale. (these seeds are 100 times hotter than jalapeno peppers.)
There are 10,000 curry houses in Great Britain.
Food historians believe that people have been eating curries for 4000 years.
National Curried Chicken Day isn’t the only time chicken is featured on a national day. Check out Super Chicken Wing Day, too.
In some Southern parts of the USA, the people eat a dish called Country Captain Chicken. This is a stewed chicken dish flavored with curry powder.
There is a Curried chicken salad in the UK called Coronation Chicken. It was created for Queen Elizabeth II for her Coronation Banquet in 1953.

How to observe National Curried Chicken Day

Eating curried chicken comes to mind as a way to celebrate, but there are a few ways to do this.

Invite some friends over to share in a traditional chicken curry. It’s a lot more fun to share the taste with friends. Have them each bring their favorite chicken curry to share.
Not a fan of cooking from scratch? Cheat by using Patak’s Mango Chicken Curry Sauce in a Jar.
Treat yourself to a chicken curry cookbook so you can learn to make it at home.
Get into the spirit with a Curry Apron.
Use the hashtag #NationalCurriedChickenDay to spread the word about the day on social media. Here is a tweet to get you started:

January 12 is #NationalCurriedChickenDay. Find out more about this National Day at Always The Holidays. Share on X

What is a national day?

National days of the year are a fun way to celebrate odd and unusual foods, animals and items that you come into contact with. Be sure to read out my national day’s guide for more fun days to celebrate.

There are close to 2000 national days in the year and over 150 of them are celebrated in January. Be sure to check out this post to discover more about the national days in January, as well as the January word search printable of national days.

Also have a look at these other foodie national days:

Pin this post for National Curried Chicken Day for later

Would you like a reminder of this post for National Curried Chicken Day? Just pin this image to one of your international foods boards on Pinterest so that you can easily find it later.

You can also watch our YouTube video to learn about more food days in January.