Butter Chicken is an easy recipe that’s full of savory flavor with warm spices. This mild curry has tender chunks of chicken simmered in a creamy spiced curry sauce. It’s quick to make with chicken, tomato sauce, cream, and handful of pantry spices.
Serve over rice with a side of naan bread for sopping up the delicious sauce!
Butter Chicken
In Indian cuisine makhani is a butter chicken sauce. It’s basically a gravy the chicken is cooked in with plenty of warm spices, a hint of tomato and some cream.
Like curry-style chicken or curried chickpeas, it’s both rich and light and best served with rice and topped with cilantro.
Marinating the chicken in yogurt makes it incredibly tender, this can be done the night before if time allows.
How To Make Butter Chicken
It’s super easy to make this rich and tasty dish!
- Marinate chicken at least 30 minutes, but preferably overnight.
- Saute onions in butter and spices until soft and fragrant (per recipe below).
- Add all other ingredients to the onions and cook until sauce thickens.
- Add cream and continue cooking.
Serve over rice topped with cilantro. Yummy!
What to Serve with It
Butter chicken goes with everything because it has such a savory and mild flavor! Here are some favorite sides, salads, and bread to inspire you!
- This garlic butter kale rice is a perfect side dish for butter chicken!
- How about a Caprese salad to perfectly complement butter chicken?
- Try this delicious homemade garlic bread or cheesy garlic breadsticks.
Can You Freeze Butter Chicken?
Butter chicken can be frozen. Make sure it is chilled before freezing. Just place it in a zippered bag or and airtight container and label with the date on it. Butter chicken should keep about two months.
Favorite Chicken Recipes
- Chicken Curry – rich & aromatic
- Chicken Cacciatore – serve over pasta!
- Oven Baked Chicken Breasts
- Easy Chicken Marsala – 30 min meal!
- Creamy Chicken and Mushrooms
- Slow Cooker Butter Chicken
Butter Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 onion diced
- 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- 1 cinnamon stick
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt or to taste
- ¼ cup chicken broth
- 14 ounces crushed tomatoes 1 can
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
Marinade
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons garam masala
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 cup plain yogurt
Instructions
- Marinate chicken in the marinade, 30 min or overnight.
- Remove chicken from marinade allowing excess to drip off. Brown chicken in 1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil until browned on both sides, about 6 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.
- Melt butter over medium heat, cook onions until tender. Add the ginger, garlic, and spices and cook 1 minute or until fragrant.
- Add chicken broth, browned chicken, crushed tomatoes and sugar. Simmer 10 minutes or until slightly thickened. Add cream and cook an additional 5-10 minutes. Discard cinnamon stick.
- Top with cilantro and serve over rice.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Chicken, Main Course
Cuisine Indian© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Family loves butter chicken and they were not disappointed with your recipe, definitely a keeper!!
My husband’s eyes lit up when he took his first bite! This was so good! There is an Indian recipe blog that I use sometimes, but the butter chicken recipe there was so intimidating with the number of ingredients and all the steps — thank you for making this so approachable and easy!
So so good!
This dish was fabulous. If you like heat, you could add extra spices. My daughter doesn’t love spices and it was perfect for her.
Butter chicken was delicious, very authentic tasting. The only thing I added was fresh curry leaves during cooking. It’s a keeper!
Excellent recipe with well balanced flavors, authentic tasting.
This was delicious. My only other comments was after I had put the chicken and tomatoes back in the pot, I still had the finger and garlic waiting to go in. I don’t see when to add them I. The recipe, so I added them in with the chicken, tomatoes and broth.
I served it with Jeera rice
So glad you loved it Jeff! The ginger and garlic are added along with the spices. I’ve update the recipe.
Made it tonight for dinner and it was so good!! Family loves it!
Yum!!! I recommend using the boneless chicken thighs per the recipe and not regular boneless breast (which is what I the first time). Boneless breast can be dry. I also recommend marinating more than 30 minutes. The flavors of the sauce are so good and not spicy at all. I did cut the chili powder in half as I wasn’t sure if it would be good spicy. Yum!
I would like to know if you can freeze it ahead and for how long
Hi Amore, as indicated in the post this butter chicken freezes great! Let is cool before freezing, then place it in a zippered bag or and airtight container and label with the date on it. Butter chicken should keep about two months in the freezer.