Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani) is one of the most popular curries in the world and yet happens to be one of the easiest! No hunting down hard to find ingredients, this chef recipe that makes the most incredible curry sauce.
This is a reader-favourite recipe included by popular demand in my debut cookbook “Dinner”!
Butter Chicken – a chef recipe!
As someone who loves food with big, BIG flavours, it’s no surprise that Indian is one of my favourite foods. A good curry and binge watching Netflix is pretty much my idea of a perfect Friday night. #NanaAlert! 😂
As much as I love making Indian food at home, sometimes I find the list of ingredients daunting. It’s easy enough to make once I gather all the ingredients, but that’s where I usually fall short because it requires a trip to an Indian grocery store – and my closest one is a fair drive away.
Butter Chicken is one of the few exceptions. I was elated when I discovered a Chef recipe for Butter Chicken and realised how easy it is. But more importantly, you can get all the ingredients from any supermarket. Yes!
Is Butter Chicken really Indian??
YES it is! It’s called Murgh Makhani and it hails from Northern India. It’s quite a mild curry compared to many Indian curries, and outside of India, it’s become just about everybody’s favourite curry!
How to make Butter Chicken – in 3 Simple Steps
Make Butter Chicken Marinade and marinate chicken for 3+ hours (overnight is best)
Cook chicken
Make sauce in the same skillet
The secret to the tender, flavour infused chicken is a spice infused yogurt marinade made with fresh ginger, garlic, lemon juice and spices. The spices in Butter Chicken are turmeric, garam masala, chilli powder and cumin.
Did you know….You don’t need copious amounts of butter for a great Butter Chicken!
The beautiful Butter Chicken Sauce mostly gets its richness from cream. While some restaurants take it over the top by stirring in a (very!) generous amount of butter into the sauce at the end, I find that it’s rich enough as it is. The Butter Chicken flavour and experience – but less oily than restaurant versions!
The sauce will initially be a pale orange colour but as it simmers and thickens, the colour will deepen to a rich orange colour.
What to serve with Butter Chicken
To make a proper Indian feast, sides and starters are essentials! Because every curry needs papadums for dunking and naan to scoop up the sauce with, right?
No-fry quick papadums – just microwave them! Place the papadums around the edge of the microwave turntable and cook on high for 45 seconds to 1 minute or until they are puffed up. They’ll be soft while warm but as soon as they cool down, they crisp up. They don’t expand as much as when deep fried, but neither will your thighs. 😂
Samosas! The ultimate Indian appetiser. Leftovers make great snacks or even lunch!
Proper naan – A recipe in the works for 5 years, I’m thrilled to finally share my proper naan recipe that can be easily made at home (no tandoor needed!)
Shortcut “naan” – For a simpler, no-yeast flatbread that’s just as good, my Easy No Yeast Flatbread looks and tastes very similar to real naan (except it’s much faster and easier!). Try telling me this doesn’t look like it belongs in this feast!
And it’s MADE for dunking in that creamy Butter Chicken Sauce!!
Sides for Butter Chicken
Readers have also asked for Vegetable Side options – to add some greens to a meal. Indian food doesn’t really have fresh side salads like in Western cuisine. Partly because so much Indian food is vegetarian, so you get plenty of veggies in your diet!
But here are some Vegetable Side Options you can add on the side of Butter Chicken:
Indian Tomato Salad – with a refreshing minted yogurt dressing;
Cucumber salad with lemon yogurt dressing – another great refreshing salad that goes perfectly with curries;
Just some sliced cucumber and wedges of tomato – not dressed. Nice cool, refreshing side
South Indian Thoran-style Cabbage and Carrot Salad with Coconut is fresh, crunchy and shot through with gentle spices and coconut!
For a simpler cabbage salad, try my Everyday Cabbage Salad
I hope this has inspired you to try your hand at making an Indian feast at home! You will honestly be amazed how much depth of flavour there is in the Butter Chicken despite how few ingredients are in it. – Nagi x
PS Don’t miss the new streamlined oven version: One-Pan Baked Butter Chicken. Readers are loving it!
Watch How To Make It
This is a reader-favourite recipe included by popular demand in my debut cookbook “Dinner”!
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Butter Chicken
Ingredients
Marinade
- 1/2 cup plain yoghurt , full fat
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp tumeric powder
- 2 tsp garam masala (Note 1)
- 1/2 tsp chilli powder or cayenne pepper powder (Note 2)
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tbsp ginger, freshly grated
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1.5 lb / 750 g chicken thigh fillets, cut into bite size pieces
Curry
- 2 tbsp (30 g) ghee or butter, OR 1 tbsp vegetable oil (Note 3)
- 1 cup tomato passata (aka tomato puree) (Note 4)
- 1 cup heavy / thickened cream (Note 5)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
To serve – choose
- Basmati rice
- White rice
- Coriander/cilantro (optional)
Instructions
- Optional blitz: for an extra smooth sauce, combine the Marinade ingredients (except the chicken) in a food processor and blend until smooth. (I do not do this)
- Marinade: Combine the Marinade ingredients with the chicken in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or up to 24 hours (minimum 3 hrs).
- Cook chicken: Heat the ghee (butter or oil) over high heat in a large fry pan. Take the chicken out of the Marinade but do not wipe or shake off the marinade from the chicken (but don’t pour the Marinade left in the bowl into the fry pan).
- Place chicken in the fry pan and cook for around 3 minutes, or until the chicken is white all over (it doesn’t really brown because of the Marinade).
- Sauce: Add the tomato passata, cream, sugar and salt. Also add any remaining marinade left in the bowl. Turn down to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Do a taste test to see if it needs more salt.
- Garnish with coriander/cilantro leaves if using. Serve with basmati rice.
- The Butter Chicken is pictured with my very easy No Yeast Flatbread and no-fry papadums (Note 5).
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published July 2015. Updated for housekeeping matters and a new video added January 2019. But most importantly, Life of Dozer section added!
For Indian Curry Lovers
- Chicken Tikka Masala – kind of like Butter Chicken on steroids!
- Palak Paneer – Indian cottage cheese and spinach curry
- Rogan Josh – fall apart lamb in a rich creamy sauce!
- Dal – the highest and best use of lentils, ever. Period.
- Biryani – the world’s best Chicken & Rice. Full stop!
- Qeema: Curried Ground Beef (Mince) – the fastest way ever to get a real Indian curry fix
- Curry lovers, head here -> Curry Collection
Life of Dozer
Flashback: Dozer’s first time in water. Look at those wild eyes!!! 😂 Fear? Excitement??
I came across this beauty of a recipe last month and have made it atleast 4 times since!
It’s become a weekly dinner in our household which the kids adore!
I often peel and Grate a Zuchini and chuck in sliced mushrooms if I have them.
THANK YOU!
I love anything where you can prep the majority before you actually start cooking, and this really hit the spot for me on a rare evening-in to myself. I substituted the chicken for paneer – prob in hindsight would have used around 400-450g of paneer as really what you want is to taste the delicious sauce, and I felt the ratio of sauce to paneer was a bit off (my fault). Used greek yoghurt as it was the only thing I had, Didn’t find that it jarred in terms of taste (couldn’t taste it). Fail-safe, tip top recipe that I can see being a winner with a big group as well as perfect for my chilled night-in. Thanks Nagi!
I have made this so many times that I thought I should rate it.
5 for sure, don’t bother buying it when i go out or any supermarket packets and jars. So good.
Best butter chicken recipe ever. Tastes as good as any Indian restaurant.
We cook the chicken then put under the grill to char before returning to the sauce.
Absolutely delicious. We also make enough to freeze and once thawed we heat in a wok gently. You would never know that it was frozen.
Thank you for this recipe. Your site is the best!
My friends very much liked this. I cooked for 100,253,537,843,937,814,925 many people they were all saying very good recipe.
Is it possible to freeze this when the chicken is in the marinade, rather than once it’s cooked?
I made this tonight and it was fantastic! My husband is lactose intolerant so I used unsweetened coconut cream. I also carmelized some onion and garlic before I put the chicken in. All the spices were perfect. Thank you!
This was the comment I was looking for, thank you!
It was really good!! My first time trying butter chicken and I loved it!
I only had an hour to marinade but it was still super delicious
This is an amazing butter chicken recipe. I’ve made it 3 times in the last month. So good! Check out the vindaloo and tandoori recipes on here. I’ve tried them and they are very tasty too!
Hi. This is really good. Was wondering if it freezes well?
Yep, it freezes fine. You can nuke it from frozen or thaw it then heat in a pan.
I am trying to be a bit healthier but love your recipes. How would you think the full strength version of carnation milk (not light) would go to use in place of cream for your recipies? Have you ever experimented with that?
Light cooking cream works very well – it’s what I used and the sauce was still very rich!
This was so delicious and surprisingly easy to make. Made with light cream and you couldn’t tell. Can’t wait to make it again 🙂
Hi Nagi could you do Metric weights for us uk followers? A lot is in metric but the cups of yogurt, tomatoes etc confuse me ( not hard 😂 I’m also visually impaired )
I just made this recipie, and it’s fantastic!
The only thing I did differently, was substitute coconut milk for the heavy cream that was suggested in the recipie.
This is fantastic. My 5-year old loves it.
I add a bit a fenugreek powder (1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon) to the marinade and 1-2 tsp of MSG along with the pasata and cream..
We really enjoyed this recipe. I made it as is, except I did add a mix of approx 1.5 tbsp of cornstarch and approx 3 tbsp water (shake together) and added to sauce at the end of the 20 minutes of simmering….just to thicken a bit . I will make this again this week….and try the tip of putting in a bit of diced onion for flavor.. (but truly liked the recipe as is) . Thank you
Made this again tonight, as I have many times before. To make it vegetarian, I used to make it with paneer and cream (which was absolutely sensational!), but recently I have been trying to reduce dairy consumption. So I have successfully made it with coconut cream and chickpeas (and sometimes cauliflower and peas). It doesn’t taste quite as “indulgent” as when made with dairy cream, but it is still extremely delicious.
As most tins of coconut cream are 400ml rather than 250ml, I like to keep powdered coconut milk in the pantry so that I can mix up the correct amount myself. But tonight I used a 400ml tin of coconut cream and 400ml of passata and increased the spices accordingly – extra sauce is not a bad thing! To go with the extra sauce tonight, I used two 400g tins of chickpeas, about half a cauliflower, and a couple of handfuls of baby spinach. I also had it with quinoa; I prefer white rice, but quinoa was a decent substitute!
I think I could also reduce the sauce down further and enjoy this on its own without any rice/quinoa. It would also be great just with vegies like cauliflower and broccoli, rather than chickpeas.
This is such a cracking recipe! Have made it many times from your cookbook. One question- do you think you could marinate and freeeze as the overnight marinating is a gamechanger so to be able to freeze it ready to thaw and cook would be awesome.
I use Greek-style yoghurt – the Farmers Union brand (Victoria, Australia).
I think you could also use natural yoghurt or regular yoghurt. Essentially, I think one without sugar or added flavours would be fine.
According to bakeclub.com.au (no affiliation – I just Googled to find out the difference!):
“Greek-style yoghurt is just natural yoghurt that has been strained one extra time – natural yoghurt is usually strained twice while Greek yoghurt is traditionally strained three times. This extra straining means that Greek yoghurt is more concentrated and is not only higher in fat (Greek Yoghurt is usually around 10% while natural yoghurt is only about 4% fat) but also thicker in consistency (due to extra moisture being removed).”
Sorry, I was trying to post this in reply to Rose below, not to the above post! 🙄👇
If I were to not add any sugar in this, will it taste different?
Yes, if you made it first with sugar and then without, you would likely notice a difference. But if you really don’t want to put sugar into it, it will still have plenty of flavour.
Naomi is right. I’ve made with and without. It really depends on the sweetness of the tomatoes and it’s not a lot of sugar. Mutti brand tomatoes are naturally sweet. I also sauté/caramelize onions and cook down the sauce before adding back the chicken. I’ve even made a giant batch of sauce and freeze before adding the cream. I always adjust the seasoning after tasting. Seasoning/spices can age as well so tasting and adjusting is important.
Butter Chicken. I made this recipe and it was quick, easy and delicious. My friends loved it as well. You were right, it did not need additional butter as it was definitely rich enough. I initially thought there was too much sauce but the four of us polished it all off. 😊 Every one of your recipes I’ve cooked has turned out perfectly and I appreciate the extra tips that elevate the dish. Thank for sharing Nagli.