If you are new to Indian cuisine, you’re probably guilty of ordering Butter Chicken with Garlic Naan and Mango Lassi. It’s the typical, safe go-to order. Honestly, it’s my takeout order, too. It’s undeniably all the best part of Indian cuisine. However, I’ve been told that my homemade Butter Chicken recipe is better than most restaurants. At this point, I’ve made it dozens of times for a weeknight dinner or while hosting friends. It’s even easier to make ahead with my Easy Baked Butter Chicken recipe. I translated my love for it into Butter Chicken Wings and Butter Masala Pasta right here on Masala and Chai! This Chicken Makhani recipe is lightly spicy and layered with flavor. I’ll walk you through all the steps to get a beautiful silky smooth bright red makhani! It’s actually quite easy to make at home. However, you may need to check that you have a well-stocked spice cabinet before you make this recipe. No worries, nothing a quick trip to the Indian grocer can’t fix! I can’t wait for you to blow your family and friends away by serving up this authentic, world famous dish! Serve it with Samosa Chaat to start and alongside a few other of my favorite dishes like Dahi Vada, Chili Paneer, and Aloo Methi Sabji. Just like a restaurant, each guest takes a little of each dish on their plate and enjoys it with rice or naan.
Why You’ll Love this Recipe
What is Butter Chicken?
Ingredients - Notes and Substitutions
The Marinade
Lightly charred, flavorful marinated chicken thighs add half of the flavor to the makhani! The chicken is marinated in dahi, ginger, garlic, lemon juice, and tandoori spices before it’s baked in a tandoor, oven, or pan-fried.
I give you options. If you don’t want to buy all the whole spices, that’s totally fine. It will be just as delicious without them. Although I really encourage you don’t skip the green cardamom. And if you don’t even want to make your own quick DIY tandoori masala, I show you how to adjust boxed butter chicken masala. I’ll help you orchestrate all the moving pieces to create this dish - marinating the chicken, making the makhani, blending the makhani, searing the chicken, and finishing off the curry. All the while providing you with process photos at each step and telling you why you’re doing that step. We use the Indian cooking process called bhuna which extracts and deepens the flavors of the curry. It’s this process and the brilliant red yet mild Kashmiri Chili Powder that creates a orangey red curry without artificial food coloring.
You may think Butter Chicken is centuries old, but it really came about in the mid-1900s! In the 1950s, Kundan Lal Gujral, the founder of restaurant Moti Mahal in New Delhi, developed this world-famous dish on accident by combining leftover tandoori chicken with a tomato-based gravy with butter, or makhani (Source: Moti Mahal Cookbook). You can still visit the restaurant today to try their famous creation. Today, we see Butter Chicken served not only by itself but in burritos, on top of pizzas, in wraps, and more. This dish has truly become world famous for its richness and bold flavor. And it’s not without some drama and a lawsuit to determine who can lay claim to the true origins of this dish! From Butter Chicken came Chicken Tikka Masala and while similar, they are not the same dish. Butter Chicken has its origins in India and uses more butter, while Chicken Tikka Masala is a British dish with a more concentrated tomato flavor. If, for some reason, the spices aren’t accessible, then I’d highly recommend the MDH Butter Chicken Masala, which can be found online or at the Indian grocery. Use a quarter of the box for the marinade, and another quarter for the makhani sauce. I adjust the MDH masala with an additional 1 teaspoon garam masala, ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves, ½ teaspoon cumin, ½ teaspoon freshly ground green cardamom, and ½ teaspoon coriander to the makhani sauce.
Chicken thighs - Specifically, chicken thighs. Chicken thighs are more forgiving than chicken breast which can easily become dry and overcooked in hot curries. Since Butter Chicken already has so much fat, be sure to trim off as much of the fat as possible before cubing it. You absolutely can use chicken breasts and sear them in a hot pan for some browning, and then transfer them to the sauce to finish cooking until tender. Dahi - Plain whole milk yogurt, like Indian dahi, is the best but you can use low-fat yogurt or Greek yogurt. Be sure to use the thickest parts of the yogurt, avoiding whey. Yogurt keeps the chicken super tender at high heat. Ginger garlic paste - Or as I call it, gigi paste! This is simply a 50/50 mix of ginger and garlic that’s blended into a paste. You can easily make ginger garlic paste at home in a mortar and pestle or blender, or purchase it readymade. Green chilis - Indian green chili peppers or serranos add a bit of extra spice! Kashmiri chili powder is really mild and mostly for color and flavor so if you’re a spice lover, this will punch up the heat. I like to deseed mine and then use a mortar and pestle to grind them up into a paste. It can be omitted. Spices - For the quick DIY tandoori masala, you’ll need garam masala, ground turmeric, ground cumin, and kashmiri chili powder. Kashmiri chili powder adds the bright red color and is very mild in heat, but can be substituted with regular chili powder or paprika. Feel free to reduce the amount of chili powder. But this recipe is from an Indian kitchen! We love heat!
Butter Chicken Sauce
Arguably the best part, the makhani (butter and tomato-based gravy)!
Butter - This is butter chicken. You need to use butter. Not a substitute like coconut oil. You can use unsalted butter (preferably) or ghee. Reluctantly, I’ll also offer that you can use half butter and half oil as well. Whole spices - The whole spices are optional, but I add star anise, black cardamom pods, green cardamom pod seeds, a cinnamon stick, and cumin seeds at the beginning of the cook. It adds a ton of flavor to the dish and isn’t the same without. You can substitute the cumin seeds with a ½ teaspoon ground cumin. My non-negotiable is green cardamom. I find that that it adds an indescribable layer of flavor to the sauce and I urge you to use it and experience it. Ground spices - We use garam masala, coriander, kashmiri chili powder, and my secret is the teeniest bit of ground cloves. You can also use 1-2 whole cloves instead of the ground spice and add it in along with the whole spices. But I hate fishing out the cloves or biting into one. Sugar - Butter chicken has a whooole lot of savory things going on. A bit of sugar helps balance it out. Tomato paste / canned tomatoes - The base of the makhani sauce is, of course, tomatoes. I use a tablespoon of tomato paste for the concentrated tomato flavor, and canned crushed tomatoes. You can also use fresh tomatoes when they’re in season. I’ve tested this recipe using fresh tomatoes and while still delicious, the curry was extremely tangy. Unfortunately, out of season tomatoes in the U.S. aren’t great for making curry. If you opt to use fresh tomatoes, boil 3 large tomatoes for 10 minutes and remove their skin. Then blend them until smooth. Heavy cream - For that signature creamy curry, use heavy whipping cream. Substitute it with coconut milk, cashew cream, or half and half. Kasuri methi - This is dried fenugreek leaves and is traditional to authentic butter chicken. It’s ultimately optional but people swear it’s the game-changing secret ingredient. Crush it between your hands before adding it directly in the curry. Substitute it with additional cilantro.
How to make Restaurant-Style Butter Chicken
I’ve broken down how to make Butter Chicken into 5 parts to orchestrate the timing of all the moving parts.
1. The Marinade
2. The Makhani Sauce
To make the makhani, we are using the Indian cooking technique referred to as bhuna, which is the process of roasting and frying ingredients in fat to extract and intensify the most flavor possible. The process darkens the base of the masala gravy until we’re ready to add the seared chicken, resulting in that bold orangey red sauce. To start, mix the ingredients for the marinade - the dahi, lemon juice, ginger garlic paste, chopped green chilis, spices, and salt in a baker or large mixing bowl that will fit the amount of chicken you’re making. Give the marinade a solid whisk until it’s smooth and uniform. Then, add the chicken thighs into the marinade and mix until the pieces are evenly coated. This is a great point to start making the makhani sauce as the chicken marinates. To start, melt 2 tablespoons of butter or ghee in a large pan or pot. While the butter melts, crush 4-5 green cardamom pods with a mortar and pestle or the flat of knife and remove the black seeds. Toss the green shells or save for a cup of chai. Lower the stove to a low to medium heat and allow the spices and tomatoes to simmer until it thickens and darkens significantly. While it simmers - let’s cook the chicken. At that point, add the ground spices - garam masala, coriander, cloves, and kashmiri chili powder. Give them a good stir and sauté for a minute to let them bloom in the fat before adding the tomato paste and canned tomatoes. Add salt to taste and the sugar. You can also add soaked cashews if you’d like it to be extra creamy and for the nutty flavor at this point.
3. Cooking the Chicken
Alternatively, bake the chicken in a preheated oven at 350ºF for 16-18 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 165ºF. Turn on the broiler for the last 5 minutes so the chicken gets crispy edges. Once it’s screaming hot, add in the marinated chicken. Cook on each side for 3-4 minutes until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165ºF and has crispy, charred edges. Once cooked, set the chicken aside.
4. Blending the Curry
Note: If you’ve tried blending the sauce and the texture is grainy, it may have too much onions. Just add a tablespoon of water at a time and continue to blend until you have a silky smooth sauce. We left off after lowering the heat to allow the sauce to thicken and darken significantly. You’ll see some of the butter start to release on the sides and form small pools. This is exactly what you’re looking for! Switch the heat off. Carefully remove and discard the star anise, black cardamom pod, and cinnamon stick. I’ve also tried using an immersion blender and the results weren’t too great. The sauce was still chunky and it splattered everywhere. If you have a high quality appliance then go ahead and use that.
5. Finishing off the Butter Chicken
Return the sauce to the pot. Turn the heat on to a medium low. Note: If you’d like to add additional vegetables, like green bell peppers, then this is where you’d do that.
Serving Suggestions
Serve Butter Chicken in a karahi serving dish for a traditional restaurant look that can be passed and shared amongst family and friends. Garnish it with cilantro, a swirl of heavy cream, and finely diced red onion. Slowly add in the heavy cream while stirring. Avoid curdling heavy cream. Don’t add the heavy cream in one go because it may curdle. Slowly stir it in. Remove the sauce from the stove and stir in a healthy pinch of crushed kasuri methi. The Butter Chicken is ready to serve! Butter Chicken is best when paired with garlic naan or classic basmati rice or restaurant-style saffron rice. If it’s a bit too spicy, a side of Cucumber Raita is especially cooling.
Storage Instructions
If you somehow have leftovers, don’t miss this Butter Chicken Garlic Naan Pizza! We use the leftover butter chicken as a sauce and topping for a delicious pizza made with a naan crust. We also love Butter Chicken Naan-chos!! You only need about a cup of leftovers!
Use chicken thighs. They are more forgiving than chicken breasts. I’ve found that chicken breasts get way too dry and overcooked with hot curries. Fry the onion. Properly fry the yellow onion in unsalted butter to a golden brown before moving on to the next step. It’s key to getting the perfect flavor (trust me, I tried without doing this). Don’t burn the spices. Do not leave the whole spices or ground spices alone in butter for more than a minute, otherwise they will burn. Knowing when to blend. The makhani sauce is ready to blend when it’s dry-ish and the tomatoes will darken by several shades (refer to the process shot). It’ll look like a thick gravy. There will be small pools of butter coming out of the edges. Glass blender? Be careful! If you have a glass blender, you’ll want to let the unblended makhani sauce cool for a bit before transferring it otherwise the glass may explode. Grainy makhani sauce? If the makhani sauce is grainy after blending, it’s probably because there was too much onion. Add a tablespoon of water at a time to the blender until the sauce is completely smooth like in the process shot above. Bland makhani sauce. If you taste the makhani sauce before adding the chicken, you may find yourself unimpressed! It could have a very strong tomato taste at this point. You’ll want to taste the makhani sauce after adding the chicken and the residual juices and spices from the pan. This adds a TON of flavor and will round out the dish. Otherwise, you may want to start by adjusting the salt or adding small amounts of garam masala and ground coriander. Too heavy on spices. If the opposite is true, the spices may have simmered for too long. Add another tablespoon of tomato paste or more heavy cream. Why are cashews optional? Cashews are a great way to add creaminess and a bit of nutty flavor to this curry. In fact, you could even omit the heavy cream if you really wanted to. If you do, I’d recommend soaking unsalted and unroasted cashews in water for 30 minutes to an hour before making the curry.
It can also be made ahead and stored for up to 5 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator. The flavors will only deepen over time. Simply reheat on the stovetop in a saucepan by bringing it up to a simmer for 5-7 minutes, or until completely warmed through. Or reheat in the microwave with the lid on for 2 minutes at High power.
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Recipe
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