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Delicious restaurant-style butter chicken made right at home with simple ingredients. This recipe is exactly how they make butter chicken in restaurants – and I’ve had people tell me it’s actually better! Trust me when I say it’s finger-lickin’ good!
Finger-Lickin’ butter chicken! That’s a little too much fun to say.
Sharing one of my all time favorite Indian food recipes today.
Last week I had this intense craving for creamy and spicy homemade butter chicken. I mean, it was so crazy that I could practically taste the butter chicken in my mouth as I thought about it. My heart started racing, my hands started shaking — okay, it wasn’t quite that dramatic; but you get the idea. I dug down deep into the LSJ files (this is actually one of the first recipes I ever posted on the blog!) It was time to retake some of the pictures and reintroduce you to my finger-lickin’ butter chicken recipe.
Not only am I replacing some of my old (read: not so great) photography. But I also reworked the recipe to make the ingredient list a little shorter without compromising any of the flavors. I also took the liberty of making the instructions easier to follow I am sharing my tried and true tips on how you can get this on the table even quicker on weeknights!
I can’t say I take all the credit for this recipe. This recipe comes from my mom, who got it from her sister, who once upon a time worked at a very popular Indian restaurant. So there. It’s authentic, restaurant-style butter chicken, for reals. <– I just took the liberty of tweaking a few things to make this recipe attainable for us everyday people. I promise you all tweaks are simple and don’t compromise the flavor!
Trust me when I say this, I took my job very seriously and strive to provide you with the best restaurant-style butter chicken you’ve ever had!
Made this for my boyfriend and he absolutely LOVED it! He thought it is only possible to eat such in an Indian restaurant….bravo, well done and thank you for sharing! 🙂
Recipe Video
So about that BUTTER chicken. Ironically enough my recipe doesn’t contain that much butter. Butter chicken is also called ‘Murgh Makani’ and when translated to English, it means Butter Chicken. And in fact, the butter in this recipe is actually clarified butter or ghee.
Nowadays, ghee is readily available in most mainstream grocery stores. You can definitely find it at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. And if you live in an area where your supermarket doesn’t stock it, you can always purchase it online here.
Ingredients for Homemade Butter Chicken:
- Chicken: Feel free to use boneless skinless chicken breasts or boneless skinless chicken thighs for this recipe. I typically cut the chicken into 1½ inch pieces and then toss it in a marinade made with yogurt and spices.
- Seasonings: Butter chicken calls for an array of spices. To help curb the ingredient list, I use a sachet of tandoori masala. It’s usually available in powder/paste form in the international aisle. The one I use and LOVE can be found here. This helps cut down on the number of spices you’ll need. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still need a little garam masala, cumin powder, coriander powder, and some red chili powder. You can also swap the red chili powder for cayenne but the flavor will be slightly different. I also find cayenne pepper to be hotter so I would suggest using slightly less than what’s called for. But you won’t need ground turmeric and a few others as the tandoori masala already contains these. Garam masala is South Asian spice mix that contains ingredients like cloves, black pepper, black cardamom, cinnamon, green cardamom, and several other spices.
- Fenugreek Leaves: In Urdu and Hindi fenugreek leaves are called kasuri methi. This is an ingredient you can easily find in almost any South Asian grocery store as it is used in many dishes. If your mainstream grocery store has an international aisle, they may carry it there as well.
- Fresh Ginger and Garlic: A lot of traditional Pakistani and Indian recipe call for freshly prepared ginger and garlic paste. Essentially, it’s just a combination of peeled knobs of ginger and a handful of cloves garlic broken down in a food processor with a little vinegar to help keep these ingredients fresh and some water. Some people also add a little oil for preservation, but this is optional. Nowadays, most South Asian grocery stores (as well as mainstream stores) sell prepared garlic and ginger paste. Feel free to make your own or purchase it for this recipe.
- Oil: You’ll need some oil to saute the onions and cook the butter chicken recipe. Feel free to use avocado oil, canola or even coconut oil for this.
- Yogurt: I like to use plain yogurt for this recipe. My mom has always taught me to beat the yogurt with the seasonings before adding the chicken pieces to ensure that the flavor disperses evenly throughout the chicken pieces.
- Ghee: We’ll use ghee (also called clarified butter) to prepare the butter chicken sauce for this recipe.
- Crushed Tomatoes: I use a can of crushed tomatoes for my butter chicken recipe. We’ll saute the onions season them with lots of spices and cook them with the tomatoes. The tomato puree will then be the base of the butter chicken sauce.
- Onions: You’ll need a large yellow onion that is sliced down the middle, peeled and then cut into thin slices. Like most south Asian recipes, this one too starts with sauteing the onions in a little ghee until they’re soft. A lot of recipes call for golden brown onions which add add sweetness to the dish when the onions are caramelized. My butter chicken recipe doesn’t take the onions that far. You want the onions to soften and turn translucent, but not brown.
- Heavy Cream: My family has always used heavy cream or heavy whipping cream for our homemade butter chicken recipe. If you are dairy-free full-fat coconut milk would make a good substitution as this is what many of my readers have mentioned using.
- Prepared Rice or Naan Bread: You’ll want to serve this up with my restaurant-style fluffy basmati rice or homemade naan. I’ve got a couple of different naan recipes that I’ve shared. You can make my high protein2-ingredient flatbread or my traditional naan recipe for this. I’ll even rub it down with a little garlic butter and garnish with chopped cilantro. Trust me, these naans are fantastic!
How to make the best butter chicken recipe
- Marinate the chicken for maximum flavor. Whisk the ginger garlic paste, yogurt, and seasoning together until the yogurt is smooth. Add the chicken piece and let this hang out. The longer you marinate the more flavorful the chicken. The yogurt, ginger, and garlic really help make the chicken more tender.
- Make the butter chicken curry. To a Dutch oven or any heavy bottom pan, add the ghee and saute the onions over medium high heat until they are soft and translucent. Add the ginger and garlic paste and give it a few seconds to bloom in the oil. Add the seasonings – chili powder, cumin, and coriander and let the spices cook in the oil. Stir often to keep them from sticking and burning. Blend the sauce in a traditional blender or use an immersion blender to make this quick and easy.
- Make ahead option. At this point, you can refrigerate the butter chicken sauce once it’s cooled down in an airtight container. You can also add it to a freezer-safe container or zippable bag and freeze it.
- Get it out. Remove the marinated chicken from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking. This is so that the yogurt has a chance to come to room temperature. I find that if you add it cold from the fridge the temperature difference sometimes causes the yogurt to curdle. To another clean pot or if you used a traditional blender, to the same pot add the remaining oil and heat it over medium heat. Add the marinated chicken. You want to discard any additional marinade.
- Saute the chicken until it’s golden on all sides. Add the prepared butter chicken sauce to the pot and stir to combine. You want to let the chicken finish cooking before you and the heavy cream and 1/2 teaspoon garam masala. Once the sauce reaches a simmer, taste and adjust the salt as needed. Then crush the fenugreek leaves between the palms of your hands to release their flavor and add them to the butter chicken. Butter chicken over fluffy basmati rice, it’s what my dreams are made of. If you’re looking for an authentic murgh makhani recipe, I’ve got you!
FAQs about Murgh Makani:
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 and Murgh Makani are the same thing. Literally translated ‘murgh’ means chicken, and ‘makhani’ means buttery (or butter.) It always makes me laugh when people argue that a recipe tasted more like murgh makhani than butter chicken.
Chicken tikka masala packs more of a punch when it comes to spices, and may or may not contain any butter. I reserve the ghee for my butter chicken and opt for oil when I’m making chicken tikka masala. Butter chicken also is a tad bit sweeter (because of the sauteed onions or the addition of sugar in many recipes) and milder when it comes to spices than chicken tikka masala.
You can make the of this recipe, blend it, and allow it to cool completely before popping it in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours. Like most Indian food, leftovers (or sauces prepared ahead) actually make the dish more flavorful. Many readers have also mentioned that they like to prepare the sauce and freeze it (without the heavy cream) to make butter chicken quicker on weeknights. This is something my family does as well!
Serving Suggestions
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How to Make Perfect Basmati Rice
Fish & Seafood
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Vegetarian
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Pakistani Fruit Chaat
Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani)
Equipment
Ingredients
Chicken Marinade:
- 1 lb. boneless chicken breast cut into 1 ½ inch cubes (see notes)
- 2 tablespoons tandoori masala see notes
- 1 teaspoon ginger paste
- 1 teaspoon garlic paste
- ½ cup yogurt
- 1 tablespoon oil
Butter Chicken Sauce:
- 2 tablespoons ghee clarified butter (see note)
- 1 large onion thinly sliced
- 1½ teaspoon ginger paste
- 1½ garlic paste
- 1 14.5 ounce can crushed tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon chili powder see notes
- 1 1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
- ¼ teaspoon dried fenugreek leaves crushed between fingers
Instructions
Chicken:
- In a medium bowl, combine the tandoori masala, ginger, garlic, and yogurt. Whisk until smooth, adjust seasonings to preference. Add the chicken and allow to marinate for at least 20 minutes and ideally for 12-24 hours, covered in the refrigerator.
Butter Chicken Sauce:
- Heat the ghee in a dutch oven or heavy bottom pot over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until they turn translucent and start to sweat, about 5-7 minutes, don’t allow the onions to brown. Add ginger and garlic paste and let cook for 30 seconds, stirring so it doesn’t burn. Add the can of crushed tomatoes along with the chili powder, coriander powder, and cumin powder and continue to cook for 5 minutes, if the mixture starts bubbling rapidly, add about ¼ cup of water and continue to cook.
- Remove from heat, add the mixture to a blender and blend until smooth, you may need to add a couple water to help it blend (up to ¼ cup). Depending on how powerful your blender is, you may want to blend the mixture in two batches. Remember to hold the lid of the blender down with a kitchen towel when blending, to avoid accidents.
- MAKE AHEAD OPTION: At this point you can cool and refrigerate the sauce for 24-48 hours (or freeze it for up to 3 months), it will help blend the flavors even more, just remember to bring the sauce back to room temperature (use the microwave) before proceeding with the recipe OR you can continue on with the recipe immediately.
Assembly:
- Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in the dutch oven over medium heat. Add the marinated chicken (discard any excess marinade) and cook for about 5-6 minutes, stirring as required to brown all sides. Add the butter chicken sauce to the pot and heat everything through. Once it starts to bubble, add the cream and garam masala. When the sauce regains a simmer, add the crushed fenugreek leaves. Serve over basmati rice or with naan.
Notes
- Want to use boneless thighs? You can replace the cubed chicken breasts with cubed boneless, skinless chicken thighs for more added flavor.
- Ghee: If you can’t find it you replace it with 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon oil.
- Tandoori masala: is available in powder/ paste form. I prefer the powder but some of my readers recommended Patak’s brand tandoori paste. You’ll need about 2-4 tablespoons of the paste (to preference).
- Chili powder: optional! If you prefer milder food, you may want to leave it out as the tandoori masala already has heat. Traditionally, a spicy pepper similar to cayenne is used. If you can’t find Kashmiri chili powder (usually sold at Indian stores), replace it with cayenne. 1 teaspoon can be a lot so if you prefer a milder flavor, replace with ¼-½ teaspoon.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like This? Leave a comment & rating below!
I made this recipe tonight and thought it tasted delicious! But the texture wasn’t right despite me blending the gravy with water, and disposing of the marinade during the assembly.
I suspect the problem may have been something to do with the tomatoes I used. I live in the UK where we don’t get “crushed tomatoes”. I used canned chopped tomatoes instead. The other options for me would have been: peeled plum tomatoes or passata. If we don’t have crushed tomatoes, what would be the best substitute? Could I just blend the plum tomatoes?
Passata would work really well in place of the crushed tomatoes 🙂
I made this and it was really good! Very flavourful! My only substitution was maple syrup for fenugreek leaves. Thanks!
Its really finger licking recipe, my husband have it on dinner last night he came back from work and was so hungry at that time I placed a very large dish with dressed Butter Chicken with the naan and salad ,
literally he licked his fingers and said : from where did you order this amazing food ?
from internet and made by me’ I said. 🙂
thank you very much for sharing such amazing recipe
with love
Fatu
It’s decent. With due respect, I wish u had put a “go to recipe” button. Cause by the time I went through the history of mankind…I lost interest and just ordered it from a restaurant.
I think most Indian recipe sites go on and on and on about things that people really don’t care or get tired. My parents are Indian, so I understand, it’s an Indian thingy. So I kept saying “get to the point” growing up.
Ure recipe is good so thought I should let you know. Thanks
There is a ‘jump to recipe’ button at the top of the page…
I just made this recipe for the 4th time tonight, and I think I finally got it perfect this time! It was amazing – I’m so glad I made a double batch and froze half. After practicing several times, these are the tweaks that work for me…
I was having a really hard time getting my sauce smooth enough. No matter how much water I added, or how long I blended, it was always grainy. But no big deal, I just started running it through a fine mesh sieve and it’s fine!
I also had some issues with graininess because the yogurt was curdling when cooking the chicken. I did some research on other Indian recipes and how they prevent it from curdling in dishes like Chicken Tikka, etc. Turns out that adding some kind of stabilizer to the yogurt is all it needs. I used cornstarch (1 tsp per 1 cup yogurt). I also switched from pan frying the chicken to cooking it in the oven under the broiler, in a roasting pan with a rack. 3-5 minutes on each side and it’s nice and caramelized on the outside while still having some internal temperature leeway to finish it off in the sauce without it getting dry.
I used basmati rice (which I’ve never made at home before) and it tasted SO authentic next to this curry. Also toasted some naan and brushed with ghee. They were the perfect accompaniments!
When canned tomatoes are called for, I ALWAYS use certified San Marzanos (I use Cento brand, but there are others). Yes, they are a bit pricier – but I promise you can really tell the difference and it is so worth it.
I doubled my chicken batch too, and cooked the extra half juuuust long enough to be cooked through after resting. I froze that chicken to go along with the extra sauce I also froze for a later date. I’ll report back here to let everyone know how it goes when I defrost and throw it all together, but I’ve had great success freezing cooked chicken in the past.
Amazing recipe, thank you so much for sharing with us!!
I now understand why this recipe has been rated 5 stars by all. It’s the best butter chicken recipe I’ve ever come across. So yummy and delicious! Thanks for sharing
I loved this recipe!!! So did my husband and friends!! I’m Bengali and my husband is Indian so we have very good sense in how these foods should taste. This butter chicken recipe has got to be hands down the best. It’s better than my family recipe! The only change I would do is to add a tbsp of the coriander, cumin, gram Marsala, garlic and ginger paste and 1/4 tsp of chili powder. ( in most Indian restaurants this dish is the mildest so putting a whole tsp makes it a spicy dish.)
I made this in the slow cooker today and we had it for dinner tonight. OMG – it was so nice, it wasn’t as greasy as it normally is at a restaurant – which was really great.
The best part is that we have left overs and we will be enjoying it for a few more nights to come 🙂
What a great idea!
How did you adjust the recipe to use the slow cooker?
I’ve tried a couple of slow cooker butter chicken recipes and they were fine but needed something more. Did you cook the chicken and the sauce then throw that all in the slow cooker?
HI,
PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO IF I DON’T FIND CAN OF CRUSHED TOMATOES., CAN I USE RAW ? HOW MANY? AND DO I NEED TO FILTER THROUGH COLANDER IF USED FRESH PURIED TOMATOES?
You would need to cook the fresh tomatoes down. I would suggest using whatever can of tomatoes you have, (or can find) and using your blender or food processor. Your hands work too!
it was really good
I’ve made this recipe 3 times now and it had been a hit all 3 times. 1st time made it only for me and my husband. 2nd time for my parent. 3rd time for a dinner party of about 15 people. This is my new go to me if I want to impress someone. Making the sauce ahead of time was brilliant saved so much time.
*If you’re sensitive to spice heat omit the chilli powder. The tandoori mix is just enough to make you think “What is the wonderful taste” without the discomfort of the heat. I’ve made it with and without and both are amazing.
I’m so glad I found this recipe. 100% a must try!!!
First time ever making Butter Chicken and oh my gosh, this recipe is just deeelish! My household loved it! Thankyou for sharing 🙂
Hi,
I’ve made this recipe exactly per your recipe (came out great!), but I have a question. The recipe says to “thinly slice” the onion…I like to use a food processor for onions. Since you end up blending it anyway, does it really matter how the onion is cut? Thank you in advance!
-Sahar
I slice the onions because it’s the quickest way to cut them and as it exposes more of the onion to the oil and cooks it slightly quicker. Food processing, or dicing the onions might change the cooking time to get the onions translucent by a little bit, but for this recipe, it won’t make a huge difference if you prefer to use your food processor!
Had to comment because I saw couple of comments saying their butter chicken ended up grainy rather than smooth. I think it is because of their sauce getting split rather than making an error in the recipe/not blending the sauce enough. Butter chicken is actually a very hard sauce because it contains yogurt, cream, butter and tomato sauce. Yogurt and cream are the reason why sauces can split while butter, tomato sauces and other salty products increase the risks of it happening. Splitting is a process where liquid separates from the rest of the yogurt/cream ingredients (those are the little grainy elements). You can look up more about this on the Internet but here are some tips that can lower the risks of your sauce splitting:
– Instead of Turkish or Greek yogurt, use natural yogurt. I think it doesn’t split as much as Turkish or Greek yogurt.
– Wait for the chicken yogurt marinade to get to room temperature before starting to cook it, adding cold yogurt to a hot pan makes it split 100%. Even if you didn’t refrigerate the marinade over night, wait for the temperature of the yogurt to rise. Also take the cream out of your refrigerator a good time before using it (once again you don’t want to add cold cream to a hot sauce).
– As the recipe states, only use medium heat AT MOST. Cooking the yogurt marinated chicken on too hot pan makes the yogurt split. Same goes later on in the recipe, do not heat the sauce too much or the yogurt and also the cream has a chance to split (that’s probably why Marzia wants you to add some water if the sauce started to bubble rapidly).
– Don’t add too much salt after adding the cream. Yogurt/cream + salt = split.
Hope this helps, remember that this sauce is incredibly hard because of its ingredients, even if you follow these tips there is still a good chance of your sauce getting split. But even if it does, it will still taste delicious, it just doesn’t look as good.
Good luck!
I just wanted to say a huge thank you for this recipe it turned out amazing! I’m glad I doubled the recipe because everyone ate until bursting ? it’s very yummy, easy and authentic!
Tasty!!thank u 🙂
I plan on making this butter chicken this evening and am looking for a basmati rice recipe on your site but am having difficulty finding one. Do you have one? Did I miss seeing a link? I found a link to your garlic naan on another recipe.
If I want more than 1 lb chicken. Should I double the whole receipe ?
Help – I’m in Australia and the tandoori masala isn’t avaiable near me. Is there anything at all that is an equal subsitute, or is anyone able to portion out the spices to make the mix?
Thanks very much 🙂
You can buy tandoori spice mix in Coles. It’s near the salt & pepper sections.
I loved making this dish and it turned out very well! It was super yummy and rich ??? you did a great job explaining the recipe!