Butter Chicken

Butter Chicken, for the Love of that Sauce

If there’s one dish that convinces people they can cook Indian food at home, it’s butter chicken.

Creamy without being heavy. Spiced without being aggressive. Comforting, familiar, and just a little bit luxurious. Butter chicken is the gateway dish for people who enjoy Indian food and want to learn to cook it at home.

What makes butter chicken so compelling isn’t just how it tastes, but how it came to be.

A Dish Born From Practicality (and a Little Genius)

Butter chicken, or Murgh Makhani, traces its roots to mid-20th-century Delhi at Moti Mahal, a restaurant known for cooking chicken in tandoor ovens. At the end of the day, leftover tandoori chicken posed a problem: reheated on its own, it became dry and tough. The solution was transformation of this still delicious leftover food.

Leftover chicken was simmered in a tomato-based sauce enriched with butter and cream, restoring moisture and creating something entirely new. Butter chicken wasn’t designed to be flashy or elaborate. It was born from frugality, problem-solving, and an understanding of how fat, acid, and heat work together.

Why Butter Chicken Feels So Good to Cook

At its heart, butter chicken is about balance. Tomatoes bring acidity. Butter and cream soften and round the edges. Spices add warmth, not fire. And the chicken? It’s there to soak up all of it.

This recipe leans into technique without making things complicated.

The chicken is marinated separately and cooked on its own, so it stays juicy and flavorful (since most of us don’t have leftover tandoori chicken). The sauce is built deliberately—red onions cooked until translucent, garlic and ginger added for depth, spices bloomed in fat to unlock aroma. Nothing rushed. Nothing fussy. Just thoughtful steps that pay off.

The Quiet Role of Cashews

Cashews often raise eyebrows in butter chicken recipes. You don’t taste them. You don’t really see them. So what are they doing there?

Cashews act as quiet stabilizers. When soaked and blended with liquid, they help emulsify the sauce—binding fat and liquid together so the butter and cream don’t separate. They soften tomato acidity and give the sauce that restaurant-style gloss. Think of them as structural support, not a flavor ingredient. If you didn’t know they were there, you’d never guess—but you’d miss them if they were gone.

Kashmiri Chili Powder: That Signature Red and How to Substitute It

Traditionally, butter chicken uses Kashmiri chili powder, a spice prized less for heat and more for color. It’s mild, slightly sweet, and gives the sauce its signature brick-red hue without setting your mouth on fire. In Indian kitchens, it’s a go-to when you want visual drama without aggressive spice.

If you don’t have Kashmiri chili powder, don’t let that stop you. Regular chili powder paired with paprika works beautifully. Paprika brings color. Chili powder brings warmth. Together, they mimic the intent, if not the exact origin, of Kashmiri chili powder—and that’s what matters in home cooking.

Cooking isn’t about perfection; it’s about understanding purpose.

Layering Flavor the Indian Way

One of the defining techniques behind the depth of this butter chicken is blooming the spices.

Blooming means briefly cooking ground or whole spices in hot fat before any liquids are added. This step unlocks fat-soluble flavor compounds that don’t fully develop when spices are stirred directly into water or tomato sauce. As the spices warm, they become more aromatic, rounded, and expressive—never raw or dusty. In Indian cooking, blooming isn’t about heat; it’s about coaxing balance and integration.

In this recipe, that idea shows up in a quiet but intentional way. Whole spices—cloves, cinnamon, and star anise—are briefly bloomed in hot fat before the blended tomato base is added. They perfume the sauce without dominating it. For example, you’re not biting into a cinnamon stick; you’re catching a soft, warming note in the background as the cinnamon stick and the other whole spics will be removed once they’ve contributed their flavor compounds.

This layered approach is a hallmark of Indian cooking and a reminder that bold flavor doesn’t require a heavy hand. Often, it’s restraint—and careful timing—that gives a dish its elegance and depth.

Cooking Butter Chicken Builds Confidence

Butter chicken has endured not because it’s trendy, but because it works. It’s forgiving. It reheats well. It welcomes substitutions without losing its soul. Serve it with basmati rice, naan, or even spooned over roasted vegetables. It adapts to you.

And perhaps most importantly, it changes how people feel about cooking. It turns “I don’t cook Indian food” into “I could make that again.” It demystifies spices. It rewards technique. It invites curiosity.

This is the kind of dish that makes you linger at the stove, tasting and adjusting, realizing that cooking isn’t about rules—it’s about understanding why things work.

Butter chicken isn’t just dinner. It’s a confidence builder in a bowl.

Love dishes with sauce? Try this one:

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Butter Chicken

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Silky, restaurant-style butter chicken with warm spices, tomato, cream, and cashews—rich, comforting, and deeply flavorful.

• Author: Chef Sandra Lewis
• Prep Time: 1 hour + 30 minutes
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Total Time: 2 hours
• Yield: 4–6 servings 1x

Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

Chicken Marinade

• 1–1/4 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast (or thighs), cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 cup whole milk, plain Greek yogurt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons granulated garlic
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• avocado oil for cooking the chicken

Sauce

• 1 1/2 cups tomato purée
• 1/2 cup chicken stock (or more as needed to thin the gravy)
• 1/3 cup hot water
• 1/4 cup raw cashews
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter or ghee, divided
• 1 cup red onion, finely diced
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 3 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 whole star anise
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Garnish

• chopped cilantro
• additional heavy cream for drizzling

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Instructions

1. In a bowl, combine the chicken, yogurt, granulated garlic, garam masala, ground ginger, cumin, coriander, chili powder, paprika, salt, and lemon juice. Mix well to coat evenly. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour, preferably longer.
2. Place the cashews in a heatproof bowl and pour the hot water over them. Set aside to soak while you prepare the other components.
3. In a Dutch oven, melt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter or ghee over medium heat. Add the diced red onion and cook until soft and translucent, about 6–8 minutes.
4. Add the minced garlic and minced ginger to the onion and cook for 30–45 seconds, just until fragrant. Remove the Dutch oven from the heat.
5. Transfer the onion mixture to a blender. Add the soaked cashews along with their soaking water and the tomato purée. Blend until completely smooth.
6. Return the Dutch oven to medium heat and add the remaining 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter. Once the butter has melted and is foaming, add the whole cloves, cinnamon stick, and star anise and cook briefly until fragrant.
7. Add the ground garam masala, cumin, coriander, chili powder, and paprika to the whole spices and stir constantly for 20–30 seconds to bloom the spices.
8. Pour the blended tomato-cashew mixture back into the Dutch oven. Stir well to combine with the bloomed spices.
9. Add the 1/2 cup chicken stock and bring the sauce to a gentle simmer. Cook uncovered for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens and the flavors meld. Remove the whole spices after the sauce has finished cooking and before adding the chicken to the Dutch oven.
10. While the sauce cooks, warm a large skillet over medium heat and add a small amount of avocado oil. Remove the chicken from the marinade and it to the skillet, cooking just until the chicken is cooked through.
11. Add the cooked chicken along with any accumulated juices to the sauce. Stir to combine and simmer gently for 5–7 minutes.
12. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the heavy cream. Simmer briefly to warm through.
13. Taste and adjust seasoning with additional salt or spices as needed.
14. Serve with rice. Garnish each bowl with chopped cilantro and a drizzle of heavy cream.

Notes

• If you have Kashmiri chili powder, use the same total amount in place of the chili powder and paprika combined.
• Use additional chicken stock (or water) as need to thin the sauce.

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1-1/2 cups
• Calories: 304
• Sugar: 6.4 g
• Sodium: 522.1 mg
• Fat: 14.8 g
• Saturated Fat: 6.5 g
• Trans Fat: 0.1 g
• Carbohydrates: 16.2 g
• Fiber: 3.3 g
• Protein: 27.2 g
• Cholesterol: 94.1 mg