Butter Chicken Recipe (2024)

I'm an experienced Indian cook, and this is the best butter chicken I have ever had. Some modifications necessary: never leave skin on for curry recipes; and increase cooking time in first part of step 4 to get a nice "bhuna" brown. Takes moving around and scraping the bottom, as the yoghurt will stick. If adding breast meat as well (cut each half bone-in and skinless breast into 2-3 pieces), increase the cooking in stock to about an hour, which will require extra stock or water.

One thing I really like about this site - until reading this response - is that the comments are made by those who have tried the recipe. So many other sites are clogged with comments about how amazing a dish looks, without ever having cooked it. Just saying.....

I have used this recipe a number of times and really enjoy it! I don't use any butter at all and just enough oil to cook the onions, substitute light cream for full cream and I also add 2 cinnamon sticks right when I start cooking the onions for more sweetness. I feel this cuts out a lot of fat and calories but turns out awesome!! Be sure to marinate at least overnight and don't be tempted to add any more tomato or tomato paste than the recipe calls for or you will ruin the dish

Hi I am an Indian cook, who teaches authentic Indian and northern Pakistani cooking, the amount of garam masala sounds completely inaccurate. Garam masal is a very pungent, strong combination of spices , even 1 TBS would be over doing it. This explains why some of the readers found it bitter abd felt the need to add sugar. The proportions of spices and balance can completely alter the taste.

I first had Butter Chicken at an office holiday potluck, in Atlanta, contributed by a nice, but very quiet, Indian colleague. At first, the mostly-Southern group was dubious but after a few bites were won over, and the dish quickly disappeared. My co-worker shyly accepted the compliments and clearly took pride that afterwards, when any potluck was in the offing, everyone would say, "You're bringing that awesome chicken thing, right?"

In America, we're obsessed with 'boneless, skinless' poultry. Cooking meat and poultry on the bone gives a depth of flavor you can't get any other way. We've been fortunate in the Chicago area this summer to have bone-in thighs on sale for only 59 cents a pound. I used those and tried the recipe with cream once and coconut milk (as they do in another part of India) another time. DELICIOUS, is my verdict for both!

Love this. However, it's a dish that one needs to taste-test along the way. Garam Masala is a mixed bag of spices and has different flavor profiles depending upon the source. I've made this several times and occasionally found myself adding a dash of sugar, or additional tomato paste to balance some otherwise bitter spices.

This is a great recipe and was a great hit with my friends at a recent dinner party. I would suggest though for a more authentic flavour to reduce the garam masala -- 2 tbs was just short of overpowering the dish.

Oh, my, stars! Delicious! We did not want to wait for the overnight marinating time so we used the crockpot. Made the yogurt marinade. Used skinned trimmed bone-in thighs which sat in the marinade for about a half hour while we pan-friend the onions, garlic, spices, tomato mixture. (We did not use chilies at all.) Added all ingredients except cream and cilantro to crockpot. Cooked on high for 45 min or so, turned to low for about two hours. Chilled completely, then added cream and cilantro.

We add a can of tomato soup and a can's worth of milk to the left-over sauce for a delightful soup. Garnish with a swirl of cream and a sprinkle of chopped cilantro for fun.

Butter chicken. Butter. Chicken. You want spicy try chicken vindaloo that says spicy. Is butter spicy? No. This dish is meant to be savory, buttery, and delicious.

Skinless thighs are favored in butter chicken, and in my house, boneless are as well. The dish doesn't cook long enough for the bone to impart any flavor and the sauciness of it makes it difficult to eat bone-in. The picture here is a little deceiving--the preparation called for will not result in that browning (and, indeed, the dish has a more yellow-ish, curry hew than the orange above), but no matter. It was a big hit with some garlic naan.

We used our leftover sauce to make risotto the next day. Really delicious!

"It's like torture." Seriously, get over yourself. Throw it away. Side note: if you thought "Chef Bombay" from Walmart butter chicken hooked you and this recipe was "bland," then you maybe need to look at your addiction to sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

I am an amateur cook and not an expert on Indian cuisine, but to my taste this comes off as chicken curry, not butter chicken. The curry is yellow, not red when made per the recipe. The flavor also lacks a tomato base that makes it come across more as a Japanese curry. So while tasty, I didn’t get the butter chicken flavor that is commonly found in restaurants.

Quick question: it says add salt “to taste” in step 3. At that point it’s not at a stage where you can taste it really. Is there a general guide on amount? TIA.

this recipe tasted like a curry and not like a buttered chicken. I followed the recipe exactly.

Just echoing what another helpful commenter said: The recipe has a typo. It should be 2 teaspoons garam masala, not 2 tablespoons (see Amandeep Sharma’s original recipe)

Prepared as directed. One thing I would do differently is in Step 4. Adding all of the chicken stock at once made this dish very soupy. Next time I'll have some chicken stock available and only use it as needed. I'm not an expert in butter chicken recipes, but my guests and I all thought this dish was beautifully seasoned and delicious.

Eating for our dinner this after making tonight. Very tasty followed the recommendations from many folks here, thank you! Added more veg, carrots, celery, peas. so yummy, I will make this again.

This was exceptionally good butter chicken. I substituted using skinless boneless chicken thigh because I didn’t have bone-in. In lieu of tomatoes I used 8 ounce of tomato sauce and added a tablespoon of sugar and half can of tomato paste at the end. No cream needed after long simmer. Paired with home made naan.

Liked this! I did kind of a rough chop with the veggies and could see how using an immersion blender could be helpful if I made this again for a creamier sauce. I only marinated the chicken for 2 hours, but will definitely plan for overnight (based on comments) next time!

Cut all ingredients in half3 TBSP butter1 tbsp oilChicken tenders

disclaimer: dietary adjustments for low lactose & low fodmapThis was so good! I made the following adjustments:butchered whole chicken (w/ skin)leek for onionscoconut yoghurtghee for butter & oilasafoetida for garlicchilli powder for whole chilliscoconut milk for creamgreen onion tops and a drizzle of garlic & onion infused oil at the endAlso added a couple tablespoons of sugar, more salt to taste, potatoes and a carrot, more liquid and used homemade garam marsala. Yummo!

We cooked this exactly as is but with a full chicken (salted and dried in the fridge for 2 days) since it’s what we had and it was utter perfection. The breast was actually our favorite part! Unbelievable

Step 4 - to be clear....add the uncooked chicken and marinade into the sauce. The chicken will cook well this way?

Made this dish for the first time and enjoyed it, but found it very acidic and that the amount of garam masala overpowered the taste. Added sugar and cooked longer to counter the acidity (I assume from the tomatoes, used canned). Will try reducing the garam masala next time. Good start though.

too convoluted. You can simplify the recipe and make it less rich but still tastes good

It doesn’t matter if it is authentic. What matters is if it is delicious, and this is. It’s like American “Chinese “ food. It can be very delicious, but it is not even close to authentic. So what?