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 Nagi. We have made this and it’s absolutely delicious. Can this be put in the slow cooker after browning the chicken? So we aren’t ‘cooking’ once the friends arrive?
This recipe is a real crowd pleaser, I’ve made it a few times & it always turns out great! I put a little extra chilli powder in it.
Delicious recipe. My step-son said it was one of the best butter chickens he’s had up next to local famous restaurant Manjits.
Roaring hit, was cooking this with one of my boys and at first he was like can’t we just get a jar..after dinner I asked him if we should get a jar next time and he said hellllll nooooo🤣🤣 if I could add a photo it would be of one of the boys literally soaking up the drops out of the pan!!!
Thank you for the wonderful recipe. Especially helpful is your clear concise directions, particularly regarding the marinade and what to do with it while/after cooking the chicken. Cheers.
Absolutely delicious. Everyone was mopping up the sauce saying how good it was.
Love this recipe! I add a teaspoon of tomato paste to get it thicker/the color I want, then blend the sauce to make it smooth. The whole family approved!
Now my favorite Indian dish!! Super good!!
Never tried this recipe yet, but I plan to. Confused as to why the word “curry” appears as a headline in the recipe when there is none in the ingredients.
If you mean curry powder, then that simply consists of spices including tumeric, cumin, ginger, chili +/- cinnamon, coriander etc. Each premade curry powder can be different, thus Nagi has put the individual spices for the base of this “curry” recipe. Hope that helps 😊
Ps. Definitely make this, you won’t regret it!
Research curry. Once you learn what curry means you won’t be confused.
I accidentally got low fat yogurt. Will the recipe not work if I use it instead of full fat?
I didn’t have garam masala so I used 1 parts cumin and 1/4 parts allspice to make sort of a substitute for it and I also didn’t have full fat yogurt I only had non fat and it still came out FANTASTIC! I loved this recipe so much and I will for sure make it again … I also made your flat bread and it was gone FAST 😂 Thank you !
Delicious! I made this as-written, just doubled it and it turned out fantastic. We love Indian food in our house and this is one of the easiest recipes I’ve made of this type of cuisine. Quick, easy, and absolutely delicious. Thank you!
This was very easy to make and tasted amazing! I was uncertain about it when I was tasting it in the pot (it was a bit bland) but after simmering it and dishing it up, it was so nice and rich.
Hello you,
Nagi, That was out the park!!
A wee bit extra chilli powder made it even more delicious for me.
On the poppadoms,place 2 in a glass bowl ‘standing up’ and microwave for 1 minute then turn upside down for another 30 secs… perfect 👍
Btw your book is amazing,I love it!!
Phil x
Nagi! This Butter Chicken was divine! I am an American living in Singapore 9 years now. 20% of our population is Indian so have access to Butter Chicken at many restaurants and even potlucks! This is THE BEST! I’m done looking for another recipe.
I had to triple the recipe for company coming, and it made WAY too much sauce and was not thick, so I put cornstarch in for thickness. Otherwise, I may decrease the amount of lemon next time- any suggestions from the chef for making larger batches? I know that doubling things sometimes requires a little fine-tuning. But overall a nice taste.
Incredibly delicious 😋
Haven’t made this for some time- I had forgotten how tasty and easy to prepare it is – thank you Nagi
A family favourite. xo
Hi Nagi – my butter chicken tasted wonderful and tender / fell apart – but the sauce covering the chicken was nowhere near as thick as in your cookbook photo? I added some cornflour at end to help thicken, but suggestions?
Easiest & yummiest eventho i didn’t get to marinate for 3hrs