Butter Chicken is definitely the most known and popular North Indian dish in the world.
Most probably you will have come across this dish abroad and if you are in India then of course you couldn't have missed it.
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I, personally, don't remember when I tasted my first easy Butter Chicken recipe but one thing is sure, it must have been in this marvelous big colorful country called India.
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📕 Butter Chicken boneless or on the bone?
There are countless versions of this dish and I think so it must be the most modified Indian dish ever and everybody, of course, claims theirs is the best - just like the middle eastern shakshuka.
Some folks prefer the butter chicken with the bones, some claim that it is not a butter chicken if certain ingredients are not included.
Honestly, I do not know the real version and I am not going to tell you either that my easy butter chicken is the best.
But I am standing behind my easy butter chicken recipe and I assure you I can eat it every single day in my life and so does my Indian husband.
I remember how our tandoori chef would cook butter chicken occasionally.
You see, butter chicken is a typical north Indian dish and so is the Chicken Tandoori and Tikka from Punjab.
I am not going to go into the details of the butter chicken history since it seems to be rather blurred (and even the Wikipedia entry has changed in the past year, which is suspicious).
Anyway, so our chef would prepare, cook and serve his fabulous and famous chicken tandoori and if some were left, he would not resell it the next day, no, he would turn it into a gorgeous butter chicken lunch for us all.
📜 Tandoori Chicken Leftovers
The cool part in reusing tandoori chicken and turning it into a delicious butter chicken dish is...
1. leftovers are turned into something even better
2. Time management - you don't have to marinate the chicken again
and finally...
3. anything cooked previously in the Indian Tandoori oven develops a crunchy outside and perfectly cooked inside.
Because I had gained this knowledge in the past years I was reluctant to cook a butter chicken without using tandoori baked chicken.
The way our chef would prepare his food was beyond perfection, although he was a humble cook, and he was the controller of the mighty tandoori oven.
I, the white western girl, couldn't possibly recreate something so majestic in the foodie world or so I thought...
🍗 Anything and everything Tandoori
After the tandoori dream crumbled and I was officially a big-time tandoori fan I was stumped.
I was missing the fresh naans and tandoori dishes and guess what, one fine day I simply started to prepare them at home.
You can imagine that I had a couple of faux pas but all those mistakes helped me in understanding the mughlai concept of North Indian cuisine.
Finally, I have come to a point where I can say that this easy butter chicken recipe is all I will ever need.
Trust me I have tried different approaches but I enjoyed the flavors in this self-developed recipe the most.
Not many people own a tandoori oven in their back yards, so an easy butter chicken recipe was required.
I have taken the trouble to make this dish perfect because it doesn't deserve anything less so that you can get to enjoy it in your own four walls with the simplest means.
I invite you to try this easy butter chicken if you love Indian food or if you want to learn about Indian food.
Once you have done that, leave us a comment so that others can enjoy as well.
I am of course always eager to read your comments and questions.
Do you like Indian curries?
I may recommend my quick and easy chicken curry, goan meatball curry, easy and quick paneer korma, mushroom masala, aloo gobi masala, as well as a collection of 18 fantastic chicken curry recipes from India.
📖 Recipe
Easy Butter Chicken Recipe - Murgh Makhani
Ingredients
- 20 Almonds
- 400 grams Chicken Boneless
- 2 Teaspoon Ginger and Garlic Paste
- ¼ Cup Yogurt
- 1 ½ Teaspoon Garam Masala
- 1 Teaspoon Red Chili Pepper Ground or less if you don't want it too hot
- ½ Teaspoon Turmeric Ground
- ½ Teaspoon Chaat Masala
- ½ Teaspoon Kitchen King Masala
- pinch Red Food Coloring optional
- Salt according to your taste
- Black Pepper Ground
- 3 Tablespoon Tomato Sauce
- ½ Lime
- 4 Tablespoon Butter
- ½ Tablespoon Olive Oil
- 1 medium Onion sliced
- 1 small bay leaf
- 1 ½ Tablespoon Cilantro Fresh cilantro (half for the cooking, half to garnish)
- 2 Tablespoon Table Cream
Instructions
- First toast your almonds in a dry pan by shaking the pan frequently so that they don't burn. We need to do that so that we can blitz the almonds in the blender into fine almond flour. Keep the almond flour at the side for later.
- Then rinse the chicken, tap dry with a kitchen towel and cut into bite size cubes. Place into a bowl.
- Add to the bowl all at once the ginger garlic paste, yogurt, garam masala, chili powder, turmeric powder, chaat masala, kitchen king masala, food coloring, salt, pepper, the tomato paste, ½ lime and the previously ground almond flour. Mix the whole content well and keep aside to marinate for 20 minutes (the longer the better).
- Add the butter and olive oil to a shallow pan and allow to melt on slow heat and add the chopped onion. Cook until the onion is turning translucent, stir frequently, then add in the bay leaf.
- Continue to add in now the chicken yogurt masala mixture and stir fry for 9 minutes before adding half amount of the chopped coriander (¾ Tablespoon) and the cream.
- Let it cook for 1-2 more minutes. Take from the heat, garnish with the remaining chopped coriander and serve with Indian flat breads such as nan, chapati, roti.
I tried this last week and came out so delicious!
I consistently refer to this recipe on every family curry night. That is saying something, considering my father owned a curry takeout shop in Cabo Verde. This butter chicken is rich, delicious and restaurant style, which I miss dearly after moving to the US from England.
Hi Amelie, Thank you for taking the time and sharing your experience with me and the other reader. I appreciate your kind words, your high praise and the fact that you enjoy this butter chicken as much as I do! 🙂
Dear Helene
I really enjoy going thru your receipes, have not yet made any but
I will, and am sure it wont turn out like yours.
I came across a mango cake, and decided to make it, but lost the
receipe. Is it possible to send me the receipe if you can.
Warm regards.
Hi Mary,
The dishes will turn out fine you will see. 😉
A Mango cake... well I haven't posted one yet but I was going to, however once we have our mango harvest going on which should be in the next 2 weeks I will post a mango cake. If you can wait until that and in the meanwhile you can subscribe to the newsletter and once I publish the recipe you will get it straight into your email inbox.
Lemons (yellow), limes (green). Your picture shows a yellow lemon. Their tastes are quite distinctly different. Your recipe says lime. I guess you could use either, but which do you mean? The picture (lemon) or the written instruction (lime)? Or does it really matter? Any way I can't wait to try!
Hi there thanks for your question. It's a green lime that turned yellow. In India you get mostly limes, although people might call them lemon in English, or just nimbu which is the common name for lime and lemon in India. Use a smaller lime or lemon type which is stronger in taste with more acidity or bitterness. Italian lemons or so to say Lemons which you get in Europe are for example much bigger in size and are in that distinctive lemon shape (not round), those are much milder and not suited for the dish. Get a Lime or lemon with character! =)
Spent 5 weeks going from the northern, Easter, souther, western regions eating my way around India. I love the people and food. Brought home some spices but they are long gone. I wanted to fix this recipe this evening but did not have the Chaat or Kitchen King Masala. Where do I find it or can you give me the re pie for each of the masalas? Recipe sound delicious and relatively easy. Awaiting your reply and thanks for the recipe. I'm already signed up for your news letter.
Thanks, Linda
Hi Linda,
Sorry for the late reply. You can buy these masala mixtures online on amazon or in your nearest Asian grocery store. Otherwise you could make them from scratch at home too by blending the spices too a fine powder. I personally haven't had time to post my recipes for garam masala and kitchen king but you might find a few recipes online if you search for it online.
Hope this helps.
Should I be able to find all these ingredients at the local grocery store? Also can I double this recipe?
Hi,
You might find the spice blends (masalas) in a Asian store in your near or online. Also you can make those spice blends from scratch at home. Masalas are an easy quick way to add some flavor to your dishes, so they do come handy.
I want to make this, but I cannot find Kitchen King masala. I have been to 3 specialty stores that I was able to get all of the other ingredients at, but I cannot find this. Do you have any suggestions?
Hi Payton, you can make the kitchen king masala from scratch by mixing a few ingredients together such as in this recipe -> http://www.indiankhana.net/2013/03/Homemade-Kitchen-King-Masala-Powder-Recipe.html
I haven't posted a kitchen king masala yet. Anyway, have you checked online too if you can buy it there?
I hope the tips can help you, let me know if you have more questions.
The one dish that blew me off long ago was the Dum Biryani. I ate it again and again to master the taste. Then cooked for 10 days every single day to perfect each flavour and learn it's blending. I now have my magic Dum Biryani which I can cook in my sleep and it is still mind blowing as ever. My family's favourite. I am now going to do this with butter chicken starting tomoro. Will perfect it for sure coz your recipe looks awesome. I am sure it tastes like a dream too.
Hi,
Dum Biryani rarely crossed my way but you inspired me and I am going to the same as you did and create a perfect recipe.
That's my favorite butter chicken recipe, hands down. I hope you will enjoy it as much as we do. =)
Curry looks delicious,l.its one of my fav,
Wish ya great yr ahead
Thank you, wish you the same! =)
Oh I want to take a piece of Nan and dip into that sauce! What a gorgeous color and I bet that this dish is absolutely delicious! With more time over the holidays this sounds like a great challenge! We love Indian food, so even if it doesn't come out as perfect as yours I'm sure we'll enjoy it. Thanks!
This looks absolutely amazing. I've been addicted to Indian food lately, and have been eating lots and lots of delicious curry since I've been back home. I'll give this recipe a try and see how it turns out!
I love the beautiful color of this dish! Oh yes, when I first started cooking Persian food, I was struggling. The one dish my husband loved, basmati rice with tomatoes and string beans, would turn to mush on me. I made a lot of mistakes and then was jumping up and down when I finally got it. Now, I can make this dish in my sleep!
The curry looks very enticing and you rightly said that it is the most popular among the north Indians.
What a beautiful and vibrant looking dish. Looks rich and delicious. 🙂
This is a favourite dish of my husband and children.
I am going to try to make it tonight... I hope I can find the Chaat Masala and Kitchen King Masala... I have never seen these before :0
I tried to make butter chicken once before, but it didn't come out very good. I will try again though, using this recipe. It's such a delicious dish that I really NEED to master it!
When I first read the recipe, I was a tad intimidated. But your pictures put my mind at ease and I know that I can actually make this. It looks delicious and I hope to have time over winter break to give it a try.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Hi Betsy! I know how you must feel, I went through the same thing when I learned Indian cooking. The amount of ingredients can be daunting and confusing but at the end it's a cake walk compared to european dishes for example. Here it's all about the harmony of spices and ingredients in one dish. I will be sharing the different masala (spice mixtures) in the near future such as garam, chaat, kitchen king and tandoori masala.
Your take on Butter chicken looks delicious Helene, and use of almonds is new.....most people use cashew paste. I can imagine almonds adding that smokey nutty flavor to the dish. Wonderful!!
Oh yes most of the folks use cashew nuts but I always preferred it with almonds and besides almonds are easier available all over the world compared to cashew nuts. 🙂 thank you!
The color of this dish is so fantastic!! Really stunning recipe. 🙂
Thank you Ramona. I like the colour too looks more presentable and appetising but if somebody doesn't want to add the food colouring, it's not a must in the recipe.
You beauty! This looks fantastic, Helene. I can't wait to try your recipe. I often eat this at the local Indian restaurant but I've never made it at home other than with a spice packet.
I can imagine ^.^
Spice packet?
This looks wonderful! I've had this dish in restaurants, but never made it. I gotta try it! Thanks so much for this.
Thanks John, happy to read that you feel inspired! 🙂
That dish looks ever so good. I have never made butter chicken, but I'm willing to try...
Cheers,
Rosa
I think so you will enjoy it as much as we do. The flavours are so very comforting!
I love butter chicken, didn't know the trick is using tandoori chicken. must try this easy recipe. and also need to try tandoori chicken.
I am working on a tandoori chicken recipe but it's tricky without a tandoori oven. I am getting the spice/yogurt/lime/coriander flavours right but the texture outside and inside the meat is just not the same. You know what I mean, the smoked charcoal flavour is missing. This butter chicken is without tandoori chicken, it's the easier version with the comforting flavours. 🙂
Butter chicken is definitely one of our favourites. Great photos!
Thank you for the compliment Nat! 🙂