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Butter Chicken
Murgh Makhani — mild, velvety, tomato-red
🔥 Intermediate🍛 Main Course🍗 With Meat🕓 70 min
The most famous Indian dish outside India, invented in 1950s Delhi from leftover tandoori chicken. It's mild — the heat we add out of habit isn't original; in the original it's almost sweet.
🔥 Intermediate: Several things happening at once, or a dough to manage. It clicks the second time.
Prep30 min
Cook time40 min
Total70 min
Serves4 portions
Contains:
MilkTree Nuts
Refers to the recipe as written here. Store-bought ingredients may carry traces — please check the packet.
Ingredients
0 of 14✅ All set to cook!
Method
0 of 6🎉 All done — enjoy!
- Mix the chicken with the yogurt, half the ginger-garlic paste, chili powder, garam masala, lime juice and salt. Marinate for at least 30 minutes, longer overnight is better.
- Set the oven grill to its highest setting. Place the meat on a rack and grill for 12–15 minutes, until the edges turn black. Those charred spots are half the flavor.
- Melt the butter in a pot, fry the onion until soft for 8 minutes, and cook the remaining ginger-garlic paste in with it for 1 minute.
- Add the passata and the soaked cashews, season with salt, and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.
- Blend everything completely smooth with an immersion blender. For restaurant-level results, push it through a sieve.
- Return it to the pot, stir in the cream, sugar and the kasuri methi (crumbled between your palms). Add the chicken and let it sit for 5 minutes.
Tips
- Kasuri methi is the ingredient that makes butter chicken taste like butter chicken. Without it, it's a good tomato sauce.
- Kashmiri chili powder is mild and colors intensely. The same amount of regular chili powder will make the dish spicy.
- You can skip the grilling and sear the meat hard in a pan instead — but then you lose the charred flavor, and it's noticeable.
Shop the Ingredients
Everything for this recipe is available from us in Munich — in store or delivered.
