Tikka means "small piece" and usually refers to a piece of cut meat. In Indian culture, the meat is rubbed with spices and often cooked with yogurt. Tikka masala refers to the same pieces of meat, but that cook in a tomato-based gravy filled with spices this time. In this case, we made a vegan tikka masala, meaning that there is no meat at all, simply the creamy spiced tomato sauce to coat the noodles.