Does your mouth water when you think about tender marinated chicken floating in silky-smooth tomato gravy? It should! Butter chicken, traditionally known as “murgh makhni”, was accidentally developed in the 1950s at a New Delhi restaurant. The founders of the restaurant used leftover tandoori chicken in a buttery tomato gravy and invented one of the most popular Indian dishes there is. While it’s really easy to get butter chicken as takeout, it’s certainly worth the effort to make the dish on your own. Let’s learn how to make my version of this delicacy from scratch.

Chicken Marinade Ingredients:

1 lb. chicken tenders

½ cup – 1 cup plain yogurt

1 tbsp. minced ginger

1 tbsp. minced garlic

2 tsp. turmeric

1 tsp. Kashmiri red chili powder

1 tsp. paprika

2 tsp. coriander seed powder

Salt to taste

Flavorless oil for cooking

Gravy Ingredients:

¼ cup Butter

Flavorless oil for cooking

1 tbsp. minced ginger

1 tbsp. minced garlic

2 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes

¼ tsp. cardamom

¼ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. Kashmiri red chili powder

1 tsp. garam masala

Salt to taste

A handful of Kasoori methi

1 – 3 tsps. Sugar (to taste)

¼ cup heavy cream

• We can start with preparing the chicken marinade. Cube the chicken tenders into bite-sized pieces. Place the tenders in a bowl and add the yogurt. You should have enough yogurt to coat all the chicken. Mix well.
• Add the minced ginger and minced garlic to the chicken. You can either use freshly minced ginger and garlic or ginger and garlic paste. Indian supermarkets sell ginger paste and garlic paste, which are both frequently used ingredients in Indian cooking.
• Add all of the spices and the salt to the chicken as well. The spices include turmeric, Kashmiri red chili powder, paprika, and coriander seed powder, which can all be found at your local Indian supermarket. You can be more liberal with your spice amounts for a more intense flavor. Cayenne pepper powder is a good substitute for Kashmiri red chili powder but beware that cayenne pepper powder is spicier.
• Once you’ve mixed your chicken marinade, set it aside in the fridge while we make the gravy. Heat up a saucepan with oil and add about half your butter. After the oil and butter are heated up, add the ginger and garlic. Sautee for a few minutes without browning the ginger and garlic.
• Add the diced tomatoes to the pan and cook until the tomatoes are soft and mushy. Switch off the heat and let the tomato mixture cool. Once the tomatoes have cooled, blend the tomatoes until smooth. Keep aside.
• In the same pan we sauteed the tomatoes, and add enough flavorless oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Once the oil is hot enough, add your chicken cubes to the pan and let them sear. You might have to do this in multiple batches; don’t overcrowd your pan. Cook your chicken on both sides until the chicken has developed some good color. You should see some charred bits on your chicken. Set aside your cooked chicken and maybe snack on some.
• To reduce the number of dishes to be done, we can continue making the gravy in the same pan we roasted the chicken. This soaks up all of the chicken marinade flavors as well. Add the rest of the butter to the pan and keep the pan on medium-low heat. You can add as much butter as you’d like, the recipe merely gives you a suggested amount. Strain the tomato mixture into the pan. This ensures a silky-smooth gravy.
• Add the three aromatic spices, cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg, to the gravy. These aromatics are optional, but they definitely enhance the flavor of the gravy. Add the other spices and salt. The Kashmiri red chili powder gives the gravy a nice red color, the Kasoori methi gives the gravy an earthy flavor and the garam masala is a general spice concoction that works well in many Indian foods.
• Add in the sugar to taste, this balances the flavor of the dish. Moreover, add the heavy cream to bolster the richness of the gravy. Now that we’ve seasoned our gravy, let’s add the cooked chicken to it as well. Let the chicken simmer in the gravy for at least 20 minutes.
• Garnish with more heavy cream and Kasoori methi if you’re trying to be aesthetic.

This recipe makes about 4 – 5 servings of butter chicken. I recommend eating this with your favorite type of naan or basmati rice. While the recipe is quite involved, the complex and rich flavor profile of butter chicken makes it worth your effort. Happy cooking!