![Skillet Chicken With Black Beans, Rice and Chiles](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/10/11/dining/ml-chicken-and-black-beans/merlin_160015383_4bd71410-dc4f-487f-92e6-c664995b50e0-mediumThreeByTwo440.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
Butter Chicken
![Butter Chicken](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/08/24/magazine/24eat/mag-24Eat-t_CA0-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 1 hour 15 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1½cups full-fat Greek yogurt
- 2tablespoons lemon juice
- 1½tablespoons ground turmeric
- 2tablespoons garam masala
- 2tablespoons ground cumin
- 3pounds chicken thighs, on the bone
- ¼pound unsalted butter
- 4teaspoons neutral oil, like vegetable or canola oil
- 2medium-size yellow onions, peeled and diced
- 4cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 3tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and grated or finely diced
- 1tablespoon cumin seeds
- 1cinnamon stick
- 2medium-size tomatoes, diced
- 2red chiles, like Anaheim, or 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced
- Kosher salt to taste
- ⅔cup chicken stock, low-sodium or homemade
- 1½cups cream
- 1½teaspoons tomato paste
- 3tablespoons ground almonds, or finely chopped almonds
- ½bunch cilantro leaves, stems removed.
Preparation
- Step 1
Whisk together the yogurt, lemon juice, turmeric, garam masala and cumin in a large bowl. Put the chicken in, and coat with the marinade. Cover, and refrigerate (for up to a day).
- Step 2
In a large pan over medium heat, melt the butter in the oil until it starts to foam. Add the onions, and cook, stirring frequently, until translucent. Add the garlic, ginger and cumin seeds, and cook until the onions start to brown.
- Step 3
Add the cinnamon stick, tomatoes, chiles and salt, and cook until the chiles are soft, about 10 minutes.
- Step 4
Add the chicken and marinade to the pan, and cook for 5 minutes, then add the chicken stock. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for approximately 30 minutes.
- Step 5
Stir in the cream and tomato paste, and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
- Step 6
Add the almonds, cook for an additional 5 minutes and remove from the heat. Garnish with the cilantro leaves.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
I'm an experienced Indian cook, and this is the best butter chicken I have ever had. Some modifications necessary: never leave skin on for curry recipes; and increase cooking time in first part of step 4 to get a nice "bhuna" brown. Takes moving around and scraping the bottom, as the yoghurt will stick. If adding breast meat as well (cut each half bone-in and skinless breast into 2-3 pieces), increase the cooking in stock to about an hour, which will require extra stock or water.
One thing I really like about this site - until reading this response - is that the comments are made by those who have tried the recipe. So many other sites are clogged with comments about how amazing a dish looks, without ever having cooked it. Just saying.....
I have used this recipe a number of times and really enjoy it! I don't use any butter at all and just enough oil to cook the onions, substitute light cream for full cream and I also add 2 cinnamon sticks right when I start cooking the onions for more sweetness. I feel this cuts out a lot of fat and calories but turns out awesome!! Be sure to marinate at least overnight and don't be tempted to add any more tomato or tomato paste than the recipe calls for or you will ruin the dish
Hi I am an Indian cook, who teaches authentic Indian and northern Pakistani cooking, the amount of garam masala sounds completely inaccurate. Garam masal is a very pungent, strong combination of spices , even 1 TBS would be over doing it. This explains why some of the readers found it bitter abd felt the need to add sugar. The proportions of spices and balance can completely alter the taste.
I first had Butter Chicken at an office holiday potluck, in Atlanta, contributed by a nice, but very quiet, Indian colleague. At first, the mostly-Southern group was dubious but after a few bites were won over, and the dish quickly disappeared. My co-worker shyly accepted the compliments and clearly took pride that afterwards, when any potluck was in the offing, everyone would say, "You're bringing that awesome chicken thing, right?"
It's an excellent dish. I agree with Maggie, a dash of sugar. As I mixed the marinade, I thought so as well. I added the sugar during the last phase. Right, taste early and taste often, as in Cook County voting rules.
The fat is important in this recipe. It carries the flavor. I spent the afternoon climbing the Watchung hills on a bike, so I have no guilt. Plus, this is a recipe one doesn't eat every day. We're obsessed with guilt, and nutritional guilt. Chill out and enjoy.
In America, we're obsessed with 'boneless, skinless' poultry. Cooking meat and poultry on the bone gives a depth of flavor you can't get any other way. We've been fortunate in the Chicago area this summer to have bone-in thighs on sale for only 59 cents a pound. I used those and tried the recipe with cream once and coconut milk (as they do in another part of India) another time. DELICIOUS, is my verdict for both!
Love this. However, it's a dish that one needs to taste-test along the way. Garam Masala is a mixed bag of spices and has different flavor profiles depending upon the source. I've made this several times and occasionally found myself adding a dash of sugar, or additional tomato paste to balance some otherwise bitter spices.
This is a great recipe and was a great hit with my friends at a recent dinner party. I would suggest though for a more authentic flavour to reduce the garam masala -- 2 tbs was just short of overpowering the dish.
Oh, my, stars! Delicious! We did not want to wait for the overnight marinating time so we used the crockpot. Made the yogurt marinade. Used skinned trimmed bone-in thighs which sat in the marinade for about a half hour while we pan-friend the onions, garlic, spices, tomato mixture. (We did not use chilies at all.) Added all ingredients except cream and cilantro to crockpot. Cooked on high for 45 min or so, turned to low for about two hours. Chilled completely, then added cream and cilantro.
We add a can of tomato soup and a can's worth of milk to the left-over sauce for a delightful soup. Garnish with a swirl of cream and a sprinkle of chopped cilantro for fun.
Butter chicken. Butter. Chicken. You want spicy try chicken vindaloo that says spicy. Is butter spicy? No. This dish is meant to be savory, buttery, and delicious.
Skinless thighs are favored in butter chicken, and in my house, boneless are as well. The dish doesn't cook long enough for the bone to impart any flavor and the sauciness of it makes it difficult to eat bone-in. The picture here is a little deceiving--the preparation called for will not result in that browning (and, indeed, the dish has a more yellow-ish, curry hew than the orange above), but no matter. It was a big hit with some garlic naan.
We used our leftover sauce to make risotto the next day. Really delicious!
"It's like torture." Seriously, get over yourself. Throw it away. Side note: if you thought "Chef Bombay" from Walmart butter chicken hooked you and this recipe was "bland," then you maybe need to look at your addiction to sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
While I usually try the times recipes as directed the first time, I went with boneless skinless thighs, as the browned skin in the photos seemed to lack integrity. I also went with 1 tbsp of garam masala due to the many comments from the pro Indian cooks. Excellent dish.
I thought this was fantastic but it didn't thicken. We only had boneless, skinless thighs which was not my preference. Could that be it?
Really good! The sauce was too fatty for your liking so we used a fat separator thing (for the life of me I can’t remember the name!) and it turned out pretty good. Next time I will make it with no bone chicken thighs just to make it easier to eat. We served over rice.
I followed directions and others modifications that I kept seeing. I felt like it was a lot of work for there to not be a lot of depth to the dish which is strange because there are so many components. I made homemade naan with jasmine rice as a side.
This is my go-to butter chicken recipe. It ain't for folks countin' calories. The only changes I made were using ingredients I had in hand -- boneless, skinless thighs and ground walnuts for thickener. I would have preferred to leave the seeds in the serranos, but as a courtesy to guests who can't tolerate much heat I seeded the chilies. Next time I might serve it with pieces roasted peanuts or cashews.
I recommend removing chicken and blending, as well as adding either a few dashes of smoke chile powder or smoked paprika to give it more of a smoky flavor that is typical of butter chicken.
Wow. Too much sauce and very oily. Agree with Kacey about the flavor. Oh well.
This is a great recipe - reheats really well so I always make enough for leftovers. Tip: you end up with quite a lot of the sauce - if you have leftover sauce, freeze it! A spoonful stirred into soup is delicious - I’ve put it in mulligatawny and clam chowder and carrot soup.
Can this be done in a crock pot?
I don’t know when or why I messed up, but this was not good at all. The butter chicken I’ve tried before has a sweet taste, this didn’t, at all.
For those of you who, like me, found that this produced too much sauce, here is a note I oiled from an Indian cooking blog: “You can make the gravy ahead and refrigerate. Just grill the marinated chicken when needed and heat up the gravy. Then add the grilled chicken.” I think that’s a great idea.
Delicious. Needs tweaking. I used boneless thighs, 2 pounds (equivalent of 3 pounds bone-in). Ended up with too much sauce! Next time will increase boneless meat to 3 pounds. Almonds don’t add much to the taste. I don’t like cilantro. IMO it does not need a fresh-herb herb topping. Goes well with naan instead of rice. It’s closer to a north-India (where bread goes with meals) preparation than a South-India (where rice prevails) curry. Quarter tsp cinnamon subs for cinnamon stick, if needed.
Not like any of the butter chickens I’ve had in restaurants but excellent just the same. From the comments it sounds like there are many different garam masala mixes so this may be why it seemed so different from those I’ve had before. Also, I think I might blend the mix prior to adding the chicken in the future to get a smoother texture.
This was not good at all. I have had butter chicken numerous times and the texture of the sauce was off, the flavor very a combination of bland and too acrid/bitter. Too much cumin,we even lessened the Garam Masala as suggested. This recipe does a disservice to Butter Chicken and Indian food.
the recipe came out pretty good, I did add a bit more butter( I would use Ghee instead if you have it) and next time I will use coconut cream instead of heavy cream will give this more flavor and won't need to add any sugar to cut some of the bitterness from the garam marsala. I would do more tomato paste or blend the tomatoes to give a better consistency. This recipe is light on the salt so using salted butter or ghee would probably be a better choice.
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