Butter chicken

Name: Butter chicken
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 125 min
Yield: 4 people
Cuisine: punjabi
Ingredients: 800 g Chicken, thighs, bone-in or boneless; 120 g Yoghurt; 25 g Ginger, grated; 6 clove Garlic, minced; 2 tsp Garam masala; 1 tsp Cumin; 1 tsp Paprika, or Kashmiri chilli powder; 500 g Tomato, ripe, chopped, or passata; 60 g Butter; 80 ml Cream; 1 medium Onion, sliced; 1 piece Fresh chilli; 1 tsp Salt

मुरग़ मखनी

Delhi restaurant gravy: tandoori-style chicken in a tomato-butter sauce. Famous, modern, and not a stand-in for 'Indian food'.

Recipe by I Want Some Food · Reviewed by the editorial kitchen. Native name preserved: मुरग़ मखनी.

0 people cooked this in the public kitchen yet. Kitchen-tested by I Want Some Food. Not a purchased rating.

Start cooking

Prep: 25 min
Cook: 40 min
Total: 2 hr 5 min
Difficulty: Medium
Spice: Mild
Cost: Weeknight budget$8–16 USD · indicative, not a store price

Know it before you cook it

Source photograph of Butter chicken. Not official I Want Some Food pixel artwork. — Photo: Vis M via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source

About

Butter chicken (murgh makhani) is a mid-century Delhi restaurant dish: leftover tandoori chicken, tomato, butter, a little cream, gentle spice. It is Punjabi-restaurant cooking, not an ancient palace secret. This home version uses a hot oven instead of a tandoor and a blender for a smooth gravy. It should be orange, rich, and milder than people who fear 'curry' expect.

Ingredients

Servings

Ingredients

Chicken, thighs, bone-in or boneless800 g
Garam masala9.9 ml
Cumin4.9 ml
Paprika, or Kashmiri chilli powder4.9 ml
Tomato, ripe, chopped, or passata500 g
Butter60 g
Cream80 ml
Onion, sliced1 medium
Fresh chilli (optional)1
Salt4.9 ml

Marinade

Yoghurt120 g
Ginger, grated25 g
Garlic, minced6 clove

Scaling multiplies the written quantities. Baking still prefers a scale.

Steps

Step 1
Mix yoghurt, half the ginger and garlic, 1 tsp garam masala, cumin, paprika and salt. Coat chicken. Marinate at least 1 hour.
15 min
Step 2
Roast chicken at 220°C until charred in spots and cooked through, 20–25 minutes. Rest. Pull into large pieces.
25 min220°C
Step 3
In a saucepan, melt half the butter. Cook onion until soft and sweet. Add remaining ginger, garlic and chilli. Add tomatoes and simmer 15 minutes until thick.
20 min
Step 4
Blend the sauce until smooth. Return to the pan with remaining butter, cream and the rest of the garam masala. Loosen with water if needed.
5 min
Step 5
Add chicken and any roasting juices. Simmer 5 minutes. Taste: it should be rich, gently spiced, slightly sweet-acid from tomato. Serve with rice or bread.
5 min

Adapt this recipe

The canonical recipe stays intact. Personal versions are labelled. Serving changes are maths, not AI.

Adaptations · 0 / 15 used. Resets 24 August.

Substitutions

Cream → More butter and a splash of milk
Lighter, still restaurant-adjacent.
Chicken → Paneer
Paneer makhani. Skip the long roast; brown the paneer instead.

Tips

Kashmiri chilli powder is colour. Cayenne is heat. Do not confuse them in the dark.
A tiny pinch of sugar is allowed if the tomatoes are mean. A handful of sugar is a different sauce.

History & culture

Served with naan or rice in restaurants worldwide. In India it is one dish among thousands. Ordering it is allowed. Thinking it is the whole cuisine is how food writing goes wrong.

Attributed to Moti Mahal in Delhi, where cooks folded tandoori chicken into a tomato-butter gravy. A restaurant classic with a known-ish origin — treat it as such.

Modern adaptation — No tandoor. Kashmiri chilli for colour more than fire. Cream is traditional in the restaurant style.

Provenance: Editorial adaptation. Original editorial adaptation for I Want Some Food. Photograph: Vis M via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Butter%20Chicken%2C%20City%20Grill%20Kottayam.jpg