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 cooked for 6 and everyone loved it. Great recipe, easy to follow instructions.
Nice job Nagi
Delicious! I find my sauce grainy. Any idea why?
Delicious. I added some baked eggplant to the marinade with the chicken. Even the 17yr old butter chicken aficionado commented on the eggplant being nice. Winner winner this one!!!!
This is the best butter chicken ever! Easy to prepare and absolutely delicious ❤️
Your cooking and recipes are amazing! Always love every one of them. Always turns out a success. Love your quick videos too although one thing that is giving me the icks is in each video there is gunk under your finger nails. Whilst I appreciate they are natural and not all fake maybe just give them a clean out before doing the videos. Then again maybe I’m just being OTT on the presentation. Said all with love. x
I usually make a spicy butter chicken that’s more ‘Indian’ in taste. Needed a recipe that wasn’t as ‘strong’,as I was cooking for my dear in laws whose taste buds are mild. Found this absolute winner of a recipe!
Note:The amount of Chilli powder was still too little for even a mild meal, so I made it 2tsps and it was still mild due to the addition of cream and yoghurt etc
Roast2 tomatoes on the open flame of my gas stove and add to half can of puree/passata. It gives it a more smokey flavor and less of raw tomato taste
Would recommend this recipe to all levels of cooks, It’s easy and delicious.
Enjoy!
Amazing butter chicken! Super easy and delicious! Bookmarking this one to make again!
I have made this a few times. It’s so delicious but I do struggle to thicken the sauce, either way tastes amazzzzzing! Especially the next day!
Our family’s favourite butter chicken recipe. Nagi to the rescue when I realised I didn’t have tomato passata in the pantry. Followed Nagi’s directions to substitute using tomato paste I had on hand. Turned out fabulous!
So good, love love love all your recipes Nagi! I do just wish it said to set the marinade aside for later as I’m a clean as I go gal and chucked the marinade when it said to not add to pan! Would have been tastier I think had it not gone in the bin before it said to add the remainder further down in the recipe! 🙁
Oops forgot to rate x
Had to triple the amount feeding lots of people. Hopefully it will be okay 🙂
Would this work in a slow cooker
I had never ate a lot of butter chicken before, now I eat it all the time lol! I make this for all my company and always get complimented on it. It is easy and fast to prepare and tastes like a five star meal! I have always made Nagi’s Flatbread along with it, which also gets a lot of compliments! Thanks so much Nagi for making me look like I know what I am doing in the kitchen xx
AMAZING recipe! Only had 25 minutes to turn a leftover roast chicken into something interesting, so I turned to this recipe. Not gonna lie — I didn’t have time to marinade, so I just added it to the sauce and it was DELICIOUS! Thank you so much for spicing up tonight’s dinner!
I have made this several times. Super easy for something soooo tasty. Thankyou!
Can this be made ahead and reheated? How’s the best way to reheat? I would love to be able to reheat in low oven if possible in serving dish with lid on so that I can simply put straight on the table. Has anyone tried this?
Great taste to effort ratio, just need to remember to marinate the chicken. I paired it with the No Yeast Flatbread which was sooo easy to make and I never work with dough. Spread some salted butter on it and it was the best quick alternative to a store-bought naan. Toddler ate it up.
I used 5% greek yogurt (do I need to use 10% for even creamier next time?) and omitted the chilli/cayenne as I didn’t have it and didn’t want it to be spicy anyway. Forgot the garlic in the marinade. Still very flavorful.
The amount of ginger made it a tad spicy and I was worried my toddler wouldn’t like it but he ended up asking for more! I used organic ginger, which I find is more intense than non-organic. Still, I’ll use 3/4 the amount next time.
Partner said “it wasn’t like the restaurants” – meaning it’s not as creamy and too gingery for his tastes. I agree, but still a great, easy recipe.
What will happen if you let it marinate for like 30 hours? Our dinner plans have changed, now I’m concerned.
Great recipe, I’ve made it tonight and my family loves it so much, even my daughter who is not fun of spicy food. Definitely going to make it again very soon. Thank you ☺️
Help ! Tasted delicious but my sauce curdled and did not look very appealing… what did I do wrong ?!
Lemon juice, cream, and high heat are a dangerous combination that can result in curdling. Either replace the lemon juice with a generous teaspoon of cornstarch or make sure the temp is low and remains low before adding lemon juice.
Mine did as well, I would love to learn how to prevent it from happening!
Cause of the lemon juice! Whyyy is there lemon juice in this recipe!????
I’ve unexpectedly had to freeze a 16 serve portion of this butter chicken recipe. Is there anything I can do when reheating to stop the cream separating? Otherwise, it’s an absolutely delicious recipe! We make large servings often for picnics and family events!