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
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.
My kids loves it, but requested it with a bit of spice. What would you recommend?
Glad your family enjoyed this. You could add a little bit of cayenne pepper, some minced jalapeno when cooking the onions or some powdered chili peppers.
I hardly ever leave reviews for recipes online, but this one was so good that I just needed to! This was actually the second time I’ve made butter chicken; The first time was in the crock-pot and quite thin so I wasn’t a fan since I like my sauces thicker. I know that’s just a preference when it comes to butter chicken depending on where you get it, because my husband did say that he’s used to the sauce being thinner, but there was absolutely no complaints with this dish. Full of flavour, and it paired well with jasmine rice. I will say that if you do chicken breast instead of thighs like it calls for, that it is a pain getting all the pieces out of the marinade so next time I might just cut up the breast after marinating. I will definitely be keeping this in our supper rotations to make again, and freeze some for my husbands work lunches as the recipe suggests you can do. My husband said this is just as good as ordering from a restaurant, and I think even better
BEST Butter chicken recipe. Love it!
Can I substitute heavy cream for half and half?
I have only tried this with heavy cream. Some brands of half and half can react with the acidity from other ingredients (tomatoes) and curdle a little bit. I can’t say for sure in this recipe as I haven’t tried it. Let us know how it works out for you!
Add a pinch of baking soda to the tomato sauce before adding the half and half and it won’t curdle!
Hi! Im trying the recipe for dinner tonight! In the past, using different recipe, it said to blend the sauce to make it smooth and creamy. Could I do this with your sauce as well?
If you want a smoother sauce I think that would work just fine, Grace! Let us know how it turns out for you!
Amazing!!
The butter chicken formula looks fabulus and yummy. I will must attempt to cook it at my home. Grateful to you for offering this astounding formula to us.
Made it as listed and it was outstanding! I’ve tried on several other occasions to get something resembling Butter Chicken. This one tastes like the real thing!
Help, please, Holly!
My chicken is marinading as I speak (write!) and I suddenly realize I added 2 Tablespoons Garamond nasal instead of 2 teaspoons. This was my prep for tomorrow nights dinner guests. I have actually doubled the recipe and so have 4 Tablespoons in the double batch!
How should I adapt the rest of the recipe? Simply leave out Garamond masala in the final spices or should I try to get rid of as much of the marinade coating as possible before browning chicken pieces, and should I add extra sweetening or counter spices as well?
I made this very successfully a week ago and hubby is looking forward to that flavor again, has bragged on it to our guests!
Since most of the marinade is discarded, it should still be ok. You might like to reduce the garam masala slightly in the recipe (perhaps by half) but I wouldn’t leave it out completely. Let us know how it goes!
Thanks for the Prompt advice, Holly I didn’t need to cut anything at all once the marinade was mostly drained.
It was perfect! Even better this time around!
Great, so glad it worked out for you Cheryl!
A total success! My husband raved over the flavor. He isn’t fond of too much chili so this was perfect for him. I might have upped the spice slightly for myself but I won’t mess with the popularity I gained by following your recipe! Thank you!
I have tried this amazing butter chicken recipe and i found this recipe really easy to make and very delicious in taste. Thanks for sharing this recipe with all of us.
So glad you enjoyed it, Bhavesh!
This is my favorite recipe for Butter Chicken. I live in a predominantly Islamic community so I know good Butter Chicken when I taste it.
I’d have inserted a pic, but the option wasn’t avail.
This is a great recipe my family loved it. I added a little more garlic and ginger for our personal preference! Thanks for sharing
Do you cut up the chicken? Or can you?
I don’t cut up the chicken before cooking, although you can if you’d like.
Hi Holly, to marinate the thighs, how much yogurt do you use and what is the brown seasoning you have with the yogurt?
The following is in the marinade (it is listed in the recipe below the other ingredients as well)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 tablespoon cumin
1 cup plain yogurt
Can I use ground cinnamon?
Yes you can but you’ll just need a small pinch as the flavor should be subtle.
Hi, I may be mistaken. On the ingredients list it says Chicken Broth, but in the directions it says Chicken Stock. Is it suppose to be Broth or Stock? Sorry if I misread.
Apologies for the confusion, I often use broth and stock interchangeably in my kitchen. I most often use broth.
omg the marinate in this is amazing i am adding this to my rotation my son ate 4 bowls
I used coconut milk instead of the cream and it was wonderful. I think boneless skinless thighs work better. Great recipe
I love ordering in butter chicken, but this was so delicious! Even better than ordering in :) SWP Employee
Came out awful….recipie did not specify to cook chicken separately….spent alot of money and had to order pizza…
Oh no, so sorry to hear that Holly. We have updated the recipe to include browning the chicken before adding to the sauce.
Love it