The Best Butter Chicken recipe ever

You can simply view the video here: Butter Chicken Rocks!

Ingredients:

Chicken and Marinade:
• 500g boneless chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp red chilli powder
• 1 tsp Tandoori Masala
• 0.5 tsp cumin powder
• 0.5 tsp coriander powder
• 4 tbsp yoghurt
• Few drops lemon

Sauce:
• 0.5 cup butter
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp chopped ginger
• 2 large tomatoes, quartered
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil (approximated)

Finishing:
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 green cardamom pods
• 3 cloves
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 — 1.5 tsp salt
• 0.5 tsp Haldi (turmeric powder)
• 0.5 tsp red chilli powder
• 0.5 tsp Amchur (mango powder)
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
• 0.5 cup whipping cream
• A pinch of Kasoori Methi (ground fenugreek leaves)
• 0.5 tsp black pepper
• 0.5 tsp Garam Masala
• Coriander leaves, to garnish

Method:

• Add chicken and marinade ingredients to a bowl and mix well until all ingredients are well-combined
• Cover with cling film and store in fridge for at least an hour (more is better)

• Melt butter in a large saucepan and add cumin seeds and fry for one minute
• Add onion, ginger and garlic then fry until the onion turns golden brown (5-6 minutes)
• Remove onion from butter then puree
• Add tomatoes to the saucepan and sauté for 2-3 minutes
• Remove sautéed tomatoes and puree

• Add vegetable oil to saucepan and turn to high heat
• When hot, add bay leaves, cardamom and cloves and fry for one minute
• Add chicken and marinade and fry for 5-6 minutes until it turns white
• Add onion and tomato purees along with tomato paste to the saucepan
• Simmer on low heat until chicken is tender and fully cooked
• Remove whole spices from saucepan
• Add salt, Haldi (turmeric powder), red chilli powder, Amchur (mango powder), brown sugar and ground cinnamon
• Simmer for 15 minutes
• Add whipping cream and simmer for another 5 minutes
• Add Kasoori Methi, Garam Masala and black pepper
• Simmer for another 2 minutes
• Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with Naan or freshly cooked Basmati Rice

61 thoughts on “The Best Butter Chicken recipe ever

  1. Have to say this is EPIC MEAL time at its best! Love it everytime my gf says “thats amazing Pidr, thank you” n then she kisses me 🙂

    1. Served 3-4. Olive oil heats up faster then canola oil and this dish needs an oil in which flavor of the spices can shine.

  2. We have made this at least 5 times. We have varied the ingredients slightly each time, due to not having this that or the other thing …. It has been simply AMAZING each time. Outstanding flavour !! It goes great with Basmati rice … and there is an easy Basmati in a Rice Cooker Recipe you can find on youtube (the guy is a hoot too!!!)

  3. Yep! This recipe really does live up to its name Great recipe, can be prepared by stages in advance. Taste is sublime. I just changed the cream to a low fat one.

    1. You can but the taste will be drastically different. You are talking about one with the flavour like Vanilla, blueberry etc…right? Nowdays their are so many different yogurt versions..one with honey might be ok. You can use greek yogurt too…or even sour cream

  4. Wow!!! This was fabulous, I read a bunch of recipes for Butter Chicken, after finding this on YouTube I decided I would try this recipe. It was the best Indian Curry I’ve ever made. This was as good or better than any restaurant butter chicken.
    Adjustments: I didn’t have tandoori masala so I used garam masala, I skipped the cardamom seeds since I didn’t have any, and I used Greek yogurt . For the rice I added cinnamon, cloves, and corriander seeds to my rice. Thank you!!! I will make this often and spread the word.

  5. Hello! I am SO excited to try this. I can’t find kasoori methi leaves, but I do have fenugreek seeds. Can I just grind those up and use them, or are they completely different? Also, I am debating whether I want to order amchur online because I can’t find it here. I was wondering if lemon juice is a good substitute, or if amchur is truly essential to indian cooking.

  6. I really loved this recipe. Very good and just what I was looking for. I would like it to be spicy though. Can you tell me what would be good for adding spice. Chili powder doesn’t cut it. What would make it hotter (spicy)?

  7. Just wanted to say this is the most delicious curry recipe I have found. I’m making it again this evening. Thank you for sharing 🙂

  8. Excellent recipe- first time I’ve made a butter chix from scratch. One note, it was really spicy, so much that I couldn’t serve it to my kids sadly. I was fine though. Next time I will leave out the red chili pepper. I used coconut cream instead of cream and it tasted great. Will definitely be making this again.

  9. I tried this butter chicken few times it was easy and my kids love it the request it all the time. I put little bit chilly and pepper cause it’s too spicy for them . Beautiful dish thank you for your easy to cook butter chicken recipe

  10. Made this for my husbands birthday party and everyone commented on how delicious it was. Even our Indian friends said it was the best butter chicken they had ever had! Big thumbs up and thank you for a super yummy recipe.

  11. I just tried this recipe and it was delicious!!! I used chicken thigh meat instead of chicken breast. I didn’t have Indian yogurt so I used a tbsp of greek yogurt. I didn’t have tomatoes but I used canned crushed tomatoes. Overall it was great.

  12. I try this butter chicken and it was very salty. I dont know whats went wrong.

    Marinade: 1tsp salt

    Sauce: 1,5 tsp salt.

    Idea so its not so salty? and the amount of salt dosent shadow the real taste

    Thanks

  13. This is the best recipe for butter chicken. I have made it twice and have loved it both times. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

    1. I’m replying months after you have asked this, so I don’t know if you will see this. The reason you need to cook the chicken first is to seal in the moisture and flavor. You could cook the chicken in the sauce, but it would take a while and what will happen is that the gravy will get soupy and the chicken will dry out and may be tough.

  14. I made this over the weekend and it was the best I ever had. Thank you for such a wonderful recipe. I look forward to trying other recipes you make. I was nervous about making this, but after seeing the video, I had the confidence to do this.

  15. I get so many compliments on this recipe! Simply amazing! I had never done any desi cooking before but my Pakistani husband and my Bengali, Sri Lankan, and Nepali friends all love it and ask me to make it all the time! They say it reminds them of back home and are impressed I am able to make it! Thank you so much!

  16. Hi
    I think you should know that the title of this post deserves to be patented. Because have down this IS THE best butter chicken every. And that’s coming from me who had tried for 13 years every recipe known to man and then yours in an attempt to make hubby happy this is the only one he declared perfect!

  17. Just made this butter chicken after a friend gave me his secret (your recipe). Came out fantastic, can’t wait to try your other recipes, but this one will be a favorite & one to impress guests for some time to come.

  18. This was great! But, next time I will use slightly less salt and red chili powder. Or maybe Kashmiri chili powder instead. Also, please do make sure to fish out the cloves as they will continue to impart the dish beyond desire.

  19. this recipe is a staple in my entire friend circle by now. have made it many times, even variated the amounts of butter and occasionally added tomatoes from the can and still yields fantastic results! make some homemade naan and use this to lure friendly neighbors or reclusive roommates!

  20. Just…. wow…. Amazing… I can check this off my bucket list, seriously. Only thing I could not find is (mango powder) but will try next time I go to some specialized shop. I will double the spices next time (except for the salt) to give it more kick but it’s amazingly freakin’ awesome. Thank you!

  21. Hi, if we want to make much larger portions, let’s say 3x the amount of chicken, should we just multiply everything 3x? Would the spices be overpowering?

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