We eat our fare share of Indian-inspired cuisine around here. Not only are the recipes usually fairly quick, but saucy chicken and rice is right up my family’s eating alley. For the record, I usually make enough modifications and changes to blow the recipes right out of the running for ethnic authenticity, but despite that, the meals still taste fantastic and my toddlers don’t know the difference between true-blue-traditional or mom’s-shortcuts-to-preserve-sanity-and-calories.
This butter chicken is another fabulous addition to our Indian rotation. Don’t be deceived by the recipe title: the chicken doesn’t simmer in a vat of butter (although the thought happens to be quite enticing). Instead, a few tablespoons of butter are stirred into the sauce at the end of cooking to round out the flavors and give a nice silky dimension to the mixture.
Packed with flavor and quick to prepare, this dish has been well-devoured by adult and child alike each time I’ve made it in the last few months.
P.S. As you’ll notice, that is pure, lovely white rice in those pictures. After a long run of making brown rice for nearly every applicable meal, I had run plumb out and served this meal with white rice. My husband’s traitorous response when he sat down to the table: “Oh, white rice, how I have missed thee!” Here’s to trying to teach old dogs new eating habits.
One Year Ago: Perfect Roasted Asparagus
Two Years Ago: Skillet Creamy Mac and Cheese
Three Years Ago: Unbelievable Carrot Cake
Indian Butter Chicken
Printable Version with Picture
Printable Version
Note: I lightened up the recipe using fat free half-and-half in place of the heavy cream. If you don’t want to buy a special ingredient and have heavy cream (or regular half-and-half) on hand, they will both work just fine.
*Serves 6
INGREDIENTS:
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and diced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 jalapeño, seeded, and finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup fat free half-and-half
1 1/2 pounds (about 2-3) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 3/4-inch chunks
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
Hot cooked rice for serving
Chopped fresh cilantro for extra garnish
DIRECTIONS:
In a large 12-inch skillet, heat the oil over medium heat until hot. Add the onion, ginger and jalapeno. Stir often while cooking until the onion is translucent, about 4-5 minutes. Stir in garlic, garam masala, chili powder, cardamom, and coriander. Cook stirring, constantly for another minute.
Scrape the mixture into a blender or food processor and add tomato paste and chicken broth. Blend until the mixture is smooth. Pour the sauce back into the skillet and add the half and half. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat and add the chicken pieces and the salt and pepper. Stir. Keep the sauce at a simmer, stirring occasionally, and cook for 10-15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has slightly thickened.
Cut remaining 3 tablespoons butter into chunks and stir into the sauce until melted. Serve the chicken and sauce over hot rice. Garnish with fresh, chopped cilantro, if desired.
Recipe Source: adapted from Good Life Eats
{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m with your hubby – I know brown rice is better for us, but I prefer white.
I have always wanted to try butter chicken, but never have. If you say it’s great, then I’m in! I can’t wait to try it! Oh- and I agree with your husband about the rice. I serve mostly baked brown rice at home, but boy do I love to indulge once in a while with white rice! Ditto with pasta!
This looks wonderful! I made chicken vindaloo last night – you have it right – saucy chicken over rice = perfect for my house!! I want to try this one – must get garam masala!
I just tried this dish – a recipe from a friend – the other night. Everyone loved it. My recipe called for 1/2 cup of plain yogurt in place of the milk or cream… and it didn’t get stirred in until the very end. Also I didn’t use a blender for anything, so I guess ours came out “chunkier”. But I would like to try a combo of yours and mine and see what happens! Thanks Mel.
You used jalapeno pepper, would the effect be just as great is I used habenero? As we use the hottest of hot when cooking, or would the habenero be too hot?
Hey Mel! I just found your blog and LOVE it! I have already tried a couple recipes and they were delish!!!
I love white rice, I only use parboiled rice and if brown rice came that way I would totally use it. I want to try this recipe but I would have to buy lots of spices. Where do you get garam masala?
We love Indian food at our house, and this looks like it would be a great addition to our meal list. Thanks!
Oh My! Your Indian dishes sound amazing! I just started loving Indian food, and I would love to be able to make my own at home… I can’t wait to try this AND your chicken tikka masala recipe
Butter Chicken is so fantastically delicious…. and a quick, lower fat/calorie homemade version is awesome. I love Indian/Pakistani food (not so much for the spicey southern variety
) and have had a craving for it all this week. Though, I’ll probably do takeout on laziness, I did find a quick recipe for homemade paneer that your butter chicken should pair beautifully with 
so I can definiely see myself putting an entire feast together in the near future.
Hi there,
I bet you were expecting this question from someone….Where can I get garam masala? Does it have to be at a specialty foods store. I never go to those, and wondered if I was going to have to.
This looks so delish BTW!! I can’t wait to try it. I love Indian food.
Oh boy does that look delicious Mel! I just recently ventured into Indian cooking and would love to continue to learn with this recipe. My husband would absolutely love this dish. Thanks for sharing!
Where did you get your garam masala? I made this recently, not your recipe, and the spices weren’t strong enough and it didn’t taste very Indian to me. My husband said “Good try. It’s edible.” Not what a wife wants to hear. Anyway, I was thinking it was the spices that I went wrong with… I want to try yours and impress him!
P.S. Love your blog. I’ve tried quite a few recipes and they have all been amazing! Nice photography as well!
Hi Alex – I usually buy the McCormick Gourmet Blend of garam masala. I’ve always been happy with it. There are several homemade garam masala recipes floating around the internet that may be worth a try. This particular recipe (the Butter Chicken) is definitely packed with flavor. I have high hopes that if you try it your husband will think it is better than just edible!
Hi Leslie – I’ve always been able to find garam masala in my average grocery store (I’ve seen it at Walmart, too). I usually buy the McCormick brand of garam masala because it has always worked out well for me in recipes. I hope that helps!
Hi Teresa – I have found garam masala at my very average grocery store and have even seen in at Walmart. Hope that helps!
Amazing flavor in this dish. Great job!
Nym – to be honest, habanero peppers are way too hot for my taste but if you like things hot, I’d say go for it!
Just so you know, I love your blog and have nominated you for a stylish blogger award! You can check it out here: http://brittsapron.blogspot.com/2011/03/stylish-blogger.html
Bless you! I can’t wait to try it
I just made this for my family tonight and it smells delicious! I tried a tiny bite (training for a figure competition), but everyone LOVED it! I didn’t have some of the ingredients on hand (coriander and cardamom), but used diced chiles and curry seasoning in place and it tasted fantastic! Thanks, Mel!
My daughter introduced me to Indian food several years ago. My favorite is Tikka Masala. I have an idea that this will top the list! Thank you for such great recipes and a place I visit often!
My family loves Butter Chicken. Your recipe is a little different than mine, I can’t wait to give this one a try.
This looks really good! I recently tried Indian food for the first time and was so intrigued by all the fragrant spices that they use… It was such a refreshing change from the usual types of food that we eat!
My husband is thrilled that I am going to go out of my comfort zone to try this dish. I am wondering what I will serve with it. Is that naan bread I see in the background of the picture? Also, can I serve just a regular green veggie with this, or do I need to serve some kind of ethnic vegetable/preparation?
I actually got this recipe from sisterscafe blog and tried it last Sunday. Very yummy and not too hot. We added a little bit of lime juice with the cilantro, which I think both are a must. I have really enjoyed all of your recipes!
Yum! I love Indian food. But have only just begun trying to cook it myself. My sweet husband grew up eating authentic, amazing Indian food. (That’s Fiji for you) I’ve been avoiding the whole, ‘mother-cooked-this-dish-better-than-you-nice-try’ dinner conversation for a long time. This looks like a yummy one to try.
I’ll speak from my experience with garam masala because we’ve got several Indian friends who make their own, or have bought it. Here in Utah it is impossible to find at the regular grocery store. Even those touted as gourmet. I’ve found it at the Indian shop, but found out that many Indian masala blends contain pepper already, add to it a fresh jalepeno and you’ve got yourself a hot dish. So find out which kind you’re getting before adding additional heat. A good friend of mine gave me a ziploc of her masala from Fiji, they don’t add pepper. She makes her own based on recipes similar to those floating the net. Don’t forget to toast the seeds before you grind.
We just got back from Fiji and one of my favorite stops was at the open market. There was a man selling freshly ground spices by the kilo.He had 18 different garam masalas. It was so fun to smell them all and ask him what they were for. I also packed home a couple kilos of 4 different masalas and I’m loving using them.
Your husband is a kook! lol–I actually think white rice is very tasteless and prefer the nice flavor of brown to it. Bonus that it’s healthier! This butter chicken sounds soooo enticing. It’s right up our alley–we love Indian in our house too!
That looks amazing! I love Indian food too so this will be something I fix really, really soon…like after my kitchen floor is installed.
Stacie – I’ve served this with anything from steamed broccoli or peas – so no authentic Indian veggies here! And yes, that is naan bread – to be posted tomorrow!
If I don’t have any garam masala on hand and I’m too lazy to go to the store, can I just substitute curry powder? (Okay, I’m not too lazy — I’m just not un-lazy enough to go before I don’t have to drag three little helpers with me…)
Yum! We enjoyed this.
Delicious!!! I brought this and your Naan to my bookclub last night (we read A Little Princess) and it was a raving sucess! Everyone loved it. Hot naan, fresh out of the oven and the Butter Chicken. . . .yumm-o!~ People that didn’t know they liked Indian food found out they did. (ps. no garam masala in Eastern Montana, so I made my own from a recipe on the net)
Oh, this was so good! I may or may not have licked the pan clean while putting dishes away with some naan bread…I’ll never tell! I didn’t realize until I was to the step that I didn’t have cardamom, so I didn’t add it, but I’m planning on buying some ASAP and making this again. My husband and I LOVE Indian, I informed him we needed to go to India just so we can eat their food. And to TaLaisa, I just moved from Utah and I found garam masala at our tiny grocery store, and at WalMart, so I would just keep looking!
We’ve used coconut milk in the place of heavy cream to cut down the fat and you wouldn’t even know the difference (haven’t tried this recipe yet, but with others)!
Looks like a tasty recipe! I’m excited to try it!
Hi Mel,
As I told you before I manage a small school kitchen. We try and do something ethnic a couple times a month. I made this for about 80 children plus staff. I had to substitute a couple things and had to make my own version of the garam masala using what I had on hand. We served the butter chicken over rice and with green beans and spiced apples. (Have to meet the FDA requirements for food components, lol) The children and staff loved it. It was a very easy recipe to adapt for a large group. I think we are going to do the naan recipe as a nutritional activity with the kids. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
Another fantastic recipe! Paired it with your Naan recipe which has become a favorite and there was hardly a drop left.
This Butter Chicken is delicious! I love Indian food, but I live in a small town where a Navajo taco is as close as I can get to Indian cuisine. Thanks to your yummy recipes, I can make it at home, where everyone gobbles up every bite. Thanks so much for all your hard work.
Just finished eating this with hubby! It was so hard to pull away and comment, but I had to let you know it was a hit! So delicious! I have been craving Indian for the longest time, and this definitely hit the spot. I also fell in love with how easy it was to make! This is definitely a keeper. Thank you!!
Has anyone had any luck finding Garam Masala in Utah? I’ve tried Wal-Mart and Smith’s and the people just look at me like I’m crazy. I want to try this and a couple of the other Indian recipes, but don’t know where to look for it. Thanks!
Yum Mel! I just whipped this up and we LOVED it!
Made this a couple weeks ago and loved it! The chicken was not dry at all and the sauce has amazing flavors! We grilled our naan to go with it and it was perfect! Thanks for an awesome recipe.
Misti- I’ve found garam masala in Utah at Whole Foods. They have a bulk spice section. Check in there- it’s a lot cheaper than buying a whole jar of it!
I made this last night and it was a success! My husband can be very picky about anything out of the ordinary, and he tends to be suspicious of meals with lots of spices. When he asked what I was making last night, I just said “butter chicken…it’s chicken in a sauce over rice” and didn’t mention the Indian part. Then when I put the spices in the pan, he came into the kitchen from the other room and said things were starting to smell a little weird. But he ended up eating the whole bowl and said it was very tasty, lol. He sounds like a bit of a child, doesn’t he? Ah well, at least he’s willing to try things.
I’m also in Utah, and I bought my garam masala at Target since I’ve never been able to find it at Smith’s where I normally shop. It came in a cute glass jar which I liked, but it was pretty big and cost something like $6. I’m sure buying from the bulk section at Whole Foods would be cheaper if it’s not too far out of your way. Also, I left the jalapeno out and there was still plenty of kick with my Target spices.
Two thumbs WAY up Mel! Made this tonight and I loved it! Even my kids kids their bowls
I LOVED this. I knew I was going to just reading the ingredient list. My husband, however, is instantly suspicious of anything with an Indian flavor profile. After he wiped up every last bit of sauce with his naan, he proclaimed “this is the best Indian dish I’ve ever eaten, bar none”. So, it must be good
For those who are having a hard time finding garam masala, go to penzeys.com – they have the best spices and they’re prices are very reasonable. Thanks Mel!
Oooh, I wanted to just add that I served this over brown basmati rice (they sell it at Trader Joe’s now!!) cooked in chicken broth instead of water. Butter chicken and brown basmati rice are a match made in heaven.
Just made this tonight (spending an evening in, cooking Indian food with my husband is one of my favorite ways to spend a weekend night!). I’ve only just taken bites from the pan, we’re about to serve it up now.
So far I’m really happy with the amount of kick and the rich flavor. Also – we do have an easy time finding garam masala here in the Seattle area – lots of Indian food stores, I actually put this recipe on our menu because you used garam masala. We’ve got a good-sized bag and I’m always looking for ways to use it. I have to say, that I like that the garam masala flavor doesn’t overpower the dish, as it tends to do.
I also wanted to share our favorite rice that we like to make with any Indian food: http://www.thesaladgirl.com/2011/02/06/indian-brown-rice-recipe-whole-foods-inspired-recipe/
Really good!
My best friend and I spend too much money on Indian food. This’ll be great for a night in!
This is such a good place. I get covered all the important information which i needed. Great place for dinner and lunch . Garam Masala where All the dishes served very beautifully. The location is quite romantic and fresh. you must try.
I live in Utah and I got the garam masala at either Maceys or Walmart. They do have it.
My husband is out of town so it’s just me at home for the week. Since I’m not sure I can eat the whole 6 servings myself before it goes bad and I’d love for my husband to be able to try it when he gets home too, does anyone know if this would freeze well?
Tammy – I’ve never frozen this meal so I don’t know how it would fare. Sometimes half and half and other cream type liquids can have a funny texture after freezing and defrosting. It’s probably worth a try or else you could just halve the recipe for you and then make it again for your husband when he returns. Good luck!
Our church had a missions conference/international meal on Sunday. This is the first Indian dish I’ve made and it was wonderful!! I loved every bite and since I doubled the recipe I still have enough left over for supper tomorrow night. Can’t wait!!
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