Butter Chicken Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the sauce in butter chicken made of? ›

Butter chicken sauce is made of sauteed onions, tomato puree, and lots of spices. It's finished at the end with a smattering of heavy cream and some fenugreek leaves.

Butter chicken is a popular Indian dish made with chicken, spices, tomatoes & cream. This creamy & authentic tasting butter chicken is the best you can make at home. Serve butter chicken with Turmeric rice, Cumin rice, basmati rice or naan.

Yoghurt or heavy cream:

Stir them in gently, as high heat may cause curdling. These ingredients are ideal for creating a luxurious texture in dishes like butter chicken or tikka masala.

The raw chicken is marinated in a mixture of yogurt and the spice tandoori masala. Cayenne pepper, red chili powder or Kashmiri red chili powder is used to give it a fiery red hue. A higher amount of turmeric produces an orange colour.

Ingredients You'll Need

Chicken – You'll need boneless and skinless chicken breast – cubed. You can sub it with chicken thighs. Yogurt – Plain yogurt or sour cream will work.

I've made butter chicken recipes with heavy cream and loads of butter and they are just too heavy for my liking. I've swapped the heavy cream for evaporated milk and limit the amount of butter to only a few tablespoons. This lightens the dish up a bit, while still tasting very creamy.

Use wheat flour, rice flour, or coconut flour plus a fat (like ghee, olive oil, or coconut oil) in equal amounts. Cook both ingredients for a few minutes to cook out the raw flour taste, then add your curry ingredients. Once the whole curry dish comes to a boil, the sauce will thicken.

With its sweetly spiced tomato and cream-based gravy, butter chicken is a comforting, warming dish that feels decadent thanks to its silky-smooth richness. It's a dish that can be cooked with either breast meat or chicken thighs, with bones or without.

Unlike most Indian curries where the preparation of the base starts with a blend of onion and a ginger garlic paste cooked in oil, butter chicken uses tomato as a base and is cooked in butter, giving it a slightly sweet flavor. Cashews and almonds add to the sweetness and richness of the dish.

You don't have to dash out to the store if you're out of tomato paste; tomato sauce and tomato puree are both an excellent substitute. For every 1 tablespoon of tomato paste needed, use 3 tablespoons of tomato puree or sauce.

Why add cashews to butter chicken? ›

In many recipes for butter chicken, copious amounts of butter and heavy cream supply richness, but we do as we were taught in India and use cashews pureed with a small amount of water until smooth. The nut puree adds creaminess without making the dish heavy.

Your dish has a bitter flavor

Fats and sweetness can help smooth the bitter corners of a dish, just like they make coffee taste less bitter. So add a spoonful of sugar, cream or butter to tame that bitterness.

Butter chicken is a curry

At its very core, a curry is a dish cooked using a blend of spices and aromatics. There are, like, hundreds of spices in Indian cuisine, and it still blows my mind how restaurants expertly balance all of these nuanced flavors.

Do not overcook because it will continue to cook in the sauce.

Your curry can taste bitter if the spices and garlic are burnt or if you've added too much fenugreek to the dish. You see, the secret to cooking a delicious curry recipe is to create a spicy paste and slowly cook it before adding your meat.

Butter chicken tends to be creamier and sweeter than chicken curry, with heavier spices. On the other hand, Tikka masala tends to focus more on heat and spice. The two dishes often use similar ingredients: tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, and different types of chilies—but they're not quite interchangeable.

Butter Chicken has a milder and creamier taste, while Tikka Masala has a spicier, earthy, and tangier taste. Butter Chicken is a buttery and creamy tomato-based sauce. At the same time, Tikka Masala has a slightly sour and tangy tomato-based sauce.