Butter Chicken
A simple and gentle introduction to Indian food. Known as butter chicken, chicken makhanwala, murgh makhanwala or chicken makhani. The dish is not spicy at all. This recipe also doubles and triples easily, just watch your chili powder and don't go crazy.
| Servings | Prep Time |
| 4 | 10-20 minutes |
| Cook Time | Passive Time |
| 30-60 minutes | 30 minutes |
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A simple and gentle introduction to Indian food. Known as butter chicken, chicken makhanwala, murgh makhanwala or chicken makhani. The dish is not spicy at all. This recipe also doubles and triples easily, just watch your chili powder and don't go crazy.
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Ingredients
For The Chicken
- 300 grams Skinless, boneless chicken breasts Cut 1"x1" / 3cm x 3cm cubes
- 1.5 teaspoons ginger paste or you can use grated ginger
- 1.5 teaspoons garlic paste or you can use crushed garlic
- 1 tablespoon red chili powder This amount doesn't make the dish hot
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil For pan frying the chicken
- 1/2 teaspoon regular salt Optionally, add to the chicken when you are pan frying
For The Gravy
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 100 grams onions roughly chopped
- 500 grams Tomatoes Tinned or fresh, roughly chopped, skin on or not
- 1 tablespoon garlic paste or crushed garlic
- 50 grams cashew nuts raw, unsalted
- 1/2 teaspoon Garam masala
- 2 tablespoons Malt vinegar You can substitute with 1.5 tablespoons white vinegar
- 2.5 tablespoons granulated sugar You can reduce this if you want it slightly less sweet
- 2 tablespoons Kashmiri chili or red chili powder This does not make the sauce hot
- 1 teaspoon kasoori methi (sun-dried fenugreek leaves) Optional, it adds flavour, but not necessary
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
- Salt to taste Add salt right at the end of cooking
Servings:
Units:
Instructions
Chicken Marinade
- Make a marinade paste of ginger paste, garlic paste, red chili powder and salt.
- Mix the marinade paste up until it is uniform
- Chop up your chicken into 1" cubes if you haven't already
- Put the chicken and the marinade in a plastic Ziploc bag and zip the bag closed tight, removing most of the air
- Massage the marinade paste into the chicken pieces until the entire chicken is covered in paste
- Let the chicken marinade for 15 to 20 minutes on the counter whilst you cook the sauce. You can marinade for up to 3 hours in the fridge if you want to make it ahead.
Cooking The Chicken
- Heat 1 tbsp oil in a big heavy saucepan or enameled dutch oven over medium heat.
- Once the oil is shimmering, fry the marinated chicken pieces until cooked through and just taking on some colour.
- Once chicken is cooked, remove chicken to a side dish to cool
Butter Sauce
- Use the same pan you cooked the chicken in, and don't bother cleaning it.
- Add a tablespoon of vegetable oil for frying onions
- Wait until the oil starts to shimmer
- Add a tablespoon of butter to the oil
- Add the roughly chopped onions to the oil
- Cook onions, moving them around the pan to prevent burning.
- Cook onions until they have softened and take on a little yellowish colour, but are not quite browning
- Add the roughly chopped tomatoes into the pan with the onions
- Add the cashew nuts to the pan immediately after the chopped tomatoes
- Add some water to loosen up the fond on the pan. 100ml/Half-a-cup of water is enough. If the tomatoes were in a can, just rinse out the can of juices and use that.
- Add the garlic paste to the pan immediately after the water
- Add the malt vinegar to the pan immediately after
- Add the sugar to the pan immediately after
- Add the garam masala powder immediately after
- Add the kashmiri chili powder/red chili powder immediately after
- Mix all of the ingredients together until uniform
- Let the sauce simmer over medium-low or low heat for 15 to 20 minutes
- Turn off the heat and let the sauce cool for about 10 minutes
- Pour all of the sauce in to a kitchen blender
- Make sure the top on the kitchen blender is secured, and you have a kitchen towel holding the blender lid down
- Pulse the mixture until it is smooth with no lumps or pieces of cashew nut visible. You will probably have to scrape down the sides a few times to get this. You're gonna have to push the sauce around inside until you can get the sauce cavitating inside the blender jar with the blades running.
- Once blended, strain the sauce puree through a mesh sieve
- Really push the mixture through the sieve, you want to ensure you capture all of the liquid
- Once strained, return the strained puree sauce back into the pan where it was cooked
- The solid matter leftover in the sieve is waste that can be trashed
Final Assembly
- Over a low heat, bring the sauce puree back up to temperature
- Add the butter
- Add the cream immediately after
- Add the kasoori methi (if using) immediately after
- Return the chicken to the sauce immediately after
- Let the chicken simmer in the sauce over a medium/medium-low heat for 5 to 7 minutes
- Taste and adjust salt as needed
- Turn off the heat, and garnish the sauce with a little cream and a little kasoori methi if using. You can also use a little chopped parsely leaves for colour
Recipe Notes
Don't use a cast iron pan in this recipe as the tomatoes will react with the coating on your favourite cast iron and effectively strip the non-stick coating off you've worked so hard to create.