Chef Joel & Jenn: 20-Minute Butter Chicken
A couple of years ago Jenn and I tried to make butter chicken in a crock pot after we began our then early love for Indian food. Now we've been to India, had amazing authentic Indian food we get Indian food as often as possible. Instead of doing more take out we decided it was time to have another go at making Butter Chicken one of our favorite Indian dishes.
We found a recipe that called it an "easy 20-minute" Butter Chicken. That's good because there are usually a ton of ingredients in any Indian dish. Luckily once we gathered all of the ingredients (a lot of which we had already) we put them together to make a really good Butter Chicken dish.
We paired the butter chicken with rice and naan; both that we got from Whole Foods. The sauce was perfect, the chicken ended up being a little dried out. We've found that if we cut the pieces of chicken too big they take longer to cook and also dry out easier. This time we kept the pieces really small but the texture was a little off. Luckily the sauce (the most important part) was great and it made for an amazing Indian meal at home.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely minced or grated (or use paste)
- 2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced or crushed
- 1 ½ pounds (about 2-3) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into ¾-inch chunks
- 1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste (or 8-10 oz can of tomato sauce)
- 1 tablespoon garam masala
- 1 teaspoon chili powder (or paprika, adjust to taste)
- 1 teaspoon Fenugreek (I use powder, but seeds or mustard seeds can be used too), optional*
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 1 cup heavy cream (sub for half & half or yogurt for low fat)
- Hot cooked rice and naan for serving
Instructions
- Heat a large skillet or medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the oil and onions and cook onions down until lightly golden, about 3-4 minutes. Add ginger and garlic and let cook for 30 seconds, stirring so it doesn’t burn.
- Add the chicken, tomato paste, and spices. Cook for 5-6 minutes or until everything is cooked through.
- Add the heavy cream and simmer for 8-10 minutes stirring occasionally. Serve over Basmati rice or with naan.
