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 enjoyed this recipe. Thanks Nagi.
Fantastic recipe…..so authentic and restaurant quality 👍🏽👍🏽
This recipe worked really well for me as the measurements really helps so thank you!
I did add a few additional indian spices for an authentic feel in case if anyone may have them on hand as these really elevates the taste: to the ghee/butter, add an inch of cinnamon stick, 2 cloves and 2 green cardamom, about 1 tsp of freshly grated ginger and garlic and a slit green chilli. For indian style butter chicken garnish you can also sprinkle approx 1 tsp of kasturi/kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves) along with the coriander.
However I must admit the beauty of your recipe is that everything in your ingredient list is used more regularly which I do like! The base sauce of this recipe is bang on😁
Thanks for the tips! N x
Love this and it’s on the menu every week! Can I freeze this?
I have frozen butter chicken before without any issue, something about all the milk products being full fat makes it functional! Give it a try!
My new favourite Butter Chicken recipe. Love it and will make it again. I am not big chilli fan so next time I would use a little less.
This Butter Chicken recipe is simply wonderful: easy to prep, aromatic, flavorful, and a real Family pleaser–devoured in record time, including seconds! Made the fluffy (w/yeast) Naan to go with and it was a mega hit, too. Thanks, Nagi!
My partner and I LOVE this recipe! The other night we were craving it so bad we decided to try it without marinading the chicken.. bc of how flavourful the sauce is it was delicious
Made this but the sauce was red not brown from the tomato passatta
Holy moly this was epic the next night!! Best butter chicken I’ve ever eaten, will make the whole batch ahead next tine!!
This curry was so delicious! Thanks for another fantastic recipe.
Love it will be making again
Great recipe. My kids love it, which means it pleased even the fussy eaters. So good to be able to make it instead of a jar sauce. It went well with the mint tomato salad . Loved it , thank you😍😍😍
Huge hit in my family. I had a supermarket pour over sauce and found this recipe to try instead. I made 2kg chicken portion and doubled the recipe. I didn’t have cream so added a couple of tbsp of plain yoghurt to the sauce. All gone and will definitely be on the menu again.
WOW This has just becomethis households goto Butter Chicken. Winner winner chicken dinner.
Amazing recipe as always, Nagi! The chicken marinade was excellent. A few things were different when trying this at home: the tomato sauce to spices ratio was quite high and the sauce was much redder than I anticipated; I ended up adding a tablespoon more of garam masala and a teaspoon more of salt to balance out the flavours better.
Amazing, just amazing. Thanks Nagi
This was so easy and tasted a lot like the one from the local Indian restaurant. Although I added in more garam masala, a tad more cumin and more sugar – all to my own taste. I served it with pappadums and your coconut rice (which my appetite can’t get enough of!). Thanks as always Nagi! ❤️
This was soooooo good, I only had a Space of 8hrs to marinate, and it was perfect
WOOT! Thanks so much for the feedback Melisa, that’s awesome! N x
I made the recipe and opted for the lighter version and it was so good.
This will be a recipe that we will be using over & over again. Thanks Nagi!
can I use curry powder instead of Garam Masala?
Hi Melissa, not for this one sorry – it’s a different taste. N x
So good. First you had me with the gyoza, then the shawarma and now this -and the naan! We’re going around the world with Nagi! Our house all agreed this butter chicken was as good or better than what we get from the Indian restaurant. Thanks Nagi!
Wahoo! That’s awesome Sarah! N x
Any chance of a recipe for saag aloo? Restaurant we used to order it from closed and we haven’t found a replacement.