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 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.
What’s the best type of vinegar to substitute for lemon juice in the recipe? Even if you havent tried it, what would you use? 🙂
I’ve made this recipe many times as is but yesterday I used 8kg of chicken for a big crowed and timing it by 10 worked perfectly by some miracle! Am absolutely adding it to my rotation!
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!
Hi Nagi,
I’ve made this recipe as a staff meal for my colleagues and they absolutely loved it so easy and quick.
I just have one question, is this a recipe that could be easily adapted for a slow cooker?
Can you also use creme fraiche instead of cream?
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?
yup there is no problem with that but just remember to reheat the sauce using the microwave or the stove and then add in the chicken
Honey did you get an answer about freezing the marinade before cooking it????
I’m interested on doing that and don’t know if I can
Abbey
Is it ok to freeze the marinade before cooking?? So I can do a fresh curry another time????
I’ve done this a couple of times and it works well. I found the yoghurt in the marinade tends to be a tiny bit grainy when it defrosts but I had no complaints about it from the troops! It’s great if you’re a bit time poor during the week and want something quick and easy to throw together that tastes great.
Lovely recipe. Great flavours. We found it very hot/chilli from using cayenne pepper. If you’re sensitive to heat like us use less than half cayenne in recipe 👍🏻
Hi could you substitute the yogurt for sour cream in the recipe?
Does this freeze well? Im looking to make a big batch for a party…
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!
Yes, was thinking of onions as well. Cook for a long time and that would also thicken the gravy
This was the comment I was looking for, thank you!
I have made this recipe at least half a dozen times now and with a little refinement each time, it’s gets better. The first time I made it, it was lacklustre; flavour was missing but texture was great. Second time onwards, I have added 1tsp of ground coriander seeds to the marinade, and 1tsp of dried fenugreek leaves during the simmer which is very traditional to the original Indian ‘Butter Chicken’ recipe of Murgh Makhani. They dish is absolutely outstanding with these two additional ingredients. 😋
Will this freeze okay? (Sorry if it’s been asked)
Mine curdled. How do I avoid that?
I loved this meal it came out my other end rq tho ngl. I used it during that party u no.
Love this recipe, we make it all the time. With the calories per serve (402 cal), is that only for the butter chicken or is it including butter chicken and rice?
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 probably a good recipe but don’t use the full salt measurement that is recommended, it ruined mine! Just salt to taste
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!