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!!
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
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, love the butter chicken. Is it ok to freeze?
I have made this numerous times and its an awesome recipe.
I purchased ‘Dinner’ recently and this is the first recipe I made from it. Was so so good. So tomatoey and creamy. The whole family loved it.
This is definitely one of my favorite Nagi recipes. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve made it. I always double the recipe for our family of 5 and the minimal leftovers never go to waste. It is amazing as written, but it is also great when I needed to substitute. I’ve used tofu in place of chicken…the sauce is so good it could make nearly anything taste amazing. I’ve used canned coconut milk or evaporated milk in place of the heavy cream and both worked well. For the rare people commenting that this recipe didn’t work, I have to assume you aren’t doing something right… maybe get better quality spices or for those that say the sauce split or is too thin, you just need to simmer it a little longer! It initially looks split but it all melds together after simmering long enough.
Anyways, just had to comment and say thanks for the amazing recipe, Nagi. You are my favorite recipe site!!!
As good as our favorite local Indian spot
What an amazing recipe!! Thank you Nagi!! So delicious, just made it for dinner and just can’t get over how great it is. The balance of flavors is wonderful.
I cooked your Butter Chicken and Rogan Josh Lamb for dinner last night. It was delicious and everyone raved about it. I cooked the dishes a day in advance to let the flavours develop even more.
I now want to cook for a crowd of 50 using your Indian recipes of chicken, lamb, lentil, a beef dish and a vegetarian curry. There will also be rice, salads, breads and condiments. Bearing this in mind what number of servings should I adjust the recipes to?
PS – I love the scale option that adjusts the recipe accordingly- thank you.
I found this recipe in Dinner and set to making it. As my family filed in from various activities they sniffed the air and excitedly asked “what’s for supper?” I told them to look at the open page in the cookbook, but all they kept saying was how good it smelled! And once we tasted it we all decided it’s even better than it smells!
Oh my goodness this meal is my absolute favourite so far. Looked just like Nagi’s. The sauce was a great consistency and it was very tasty. Once you have the marinatining done and dusted it is a very easy and quick meal to put together. I’m making two batches for my family this week as we are big eaters 😁
This is delicious… how do I make for entertaining? Can I cook earlier in the day then reheat in the oven?
Hi Nagi! I made this recipe a while ago, and it was an absolute hit with the family! So delicious! I was thinking I’d love to try a slow cooker version, and was wondering if you had any tips on how to adapt this to be slow cooked? Thanks! <3
This is probably the first from your book I haven’t liked and not sure where it went wrong. Looked nothing like yours in the book when I did it to a T. It was nice but didn’t taste like butter chicken, something is missing or too fragrant… not sure but I had to try and tweak as much as possible by adding more butter, tomato paste and a corn flour slurry cause it was so much liquid… I make so many of your meals every week, and addicted to your page and book but for some reason this was only ok and I wouldn’t make again. I followed your book one which is very much this recipe from what I can see… not sure what’s happened? Sorry, love your work though Nagi. Thanks for making my home meals have so much variety daily x
i made this tonight and my husband said wow on the first bite ! thank you sooo much for the recipe
Simply delicious!! Thanks so much!
My favourite recipe of this site along with quesadillas. It’s restaurant quality!
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!!!
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!!