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??
Hi, I like my indian food medium spice, how can I adjust to make this a medium spicy level?
I have cooked 1 million of your recipes and loved every single one. I have never ever experienced a recipe quite like this one. I served it with a cheese & garlic naan bread. I am just a busy mum who decided to challenge herself and this was so much easier than i expected. Thank you for simplifying and exploding our taste buds with the most brilliant of recipes
We love this recipe its the best!
I made this tonight, it was delicious. I was always intimidated to try Indian dishes but this recipe was easy to follow. Thank you!
I searched for a long time for a butter chicken recipe that is easy and tastes close enough to the restaurant version. This is the one! We make it about once a month, and we always double the sauce because it is so delicious poured over rice!
I am so glad that you enjoyed it Gabrielle! N x
Have made this a few times now,its so delicious.I add 1 teaspoon keens curry powder for a extra boost and i use a runny cream for more sauce to ‘ slop up’ with the naan or roti.
Most of the time, I look at several recipes, and then make up my own to suit my taste. I followed this one exactly, and am glad I did. It is absolutely perfect. Thank you!
This is the best butter chicken ever, I’m making it for a group this weekend. Just thinking ahead, do you think it could be frozen?
Hi Elle – quite a few readers in the comments below say that it freezes perfectly! N x
Hi Nagi, I’ve made Butter Chicken from scratch several times which takes quite a bit of time with the overnight marinating, oven baking and simmering which is amazing, well, I was looking for a chicken recipe and came upon your recipe and thought why not? Everything else that I’ve made from your site was awesome so I thought I’d give it a try, wow, wow, wow, my husband thought it was wonderful, I even made up take out containers for my son who lives in the city. I am definitely keeping this on my rotation along with your naan recipe which was sooo good. I hate to admit that I don’t think there was any difference from the homemade version that I usually made. thank you so much for this version.
I really want to make this tonight and wonder if i could use coconut milk instead of heavy cream (don’t have any in my fridge)
Nagi you are amazing, I have tried about 20 of your recipes and everyone of them is 5 stars. Thank you so much!!!
Couldn’t agree more, I discovered Nagi in January 2022 and have become obsessed. I am doing weekly meals and dinner parties based on her recipes, so far everything is delicious!
100% and have the same sentiment. I used to google what I was after, now my goto is Nagi. Thank you.
She is the real McCoy 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Perfect recipe I made it for my ladies dinner I add some naan and nothing left they love it thank you so much nagi for the delicious meal
This is my daughter’s favorite Indian meal and she had seconds of this. I made the naan bread of course and it was delicious. As an American, I used our chili powder as the kid doesn’t like spicy food “yet”. It was perfect. Thank you for this one. It made everyone super happy.
Everyone loves this, it’s been added to the dinner rotations!!!
This was a rather impressive and easy butter chicken recipe. I didn’t substitute any of your ingredients and it was bloody delicious. I made some homemade yoghurt which really added to the taste of the marinade. Thank you so much Nagi.
Made this last night and swapped out the chicken for paneer using Nagi’s recipe. would recommend!
Hi there. Love this (love everything you do!!) but my wife can’t eat garlic. Fodmap. Can I use anything else?
I messed up and used American chili powder. Anybody else done that? Was seeing how it changes the flavor.
Hi, nagi😁
Can I substitute chicken thigh for breast?
Thanks!
Yes you can! N x
Just wondering if you can use full fat plain Greek yoghurt for this?
I haven’t but a few readers in the previous comments say that works fine! N x