Butter Chicken Is Classic Indian Comfort Food At Its Best

Delish

This butter chicken recipe features tender chicken swimming in a rich spiced tomato gravy for a meal that’s deeply flavored and incredibly satisfying.

Transcript

00:00 Hey everyone, it's Tia in the Delish Kitchen studio.

00:03 After three separate recipes and tons of research

00:07 and multiple rounds of testing on my part,

00:10 I can say with confidence that this is our favorite ever

00:15 butter chicken recipe.

00:17 Featuring tender spiced chicken

00:19 swimming in a rich tomato gravy,

00:22 this butter chicken is one of the finest

00:25 comfort foods worldwide.

00:27 And now you're gonna be able to make it

00:28 in your own kitchen.

00:30 Let's get started.

00:31 Butter chicken was invented in the 1950s in Delhi

00:34 as a way to repurpose/refresh tandoori chicken.

00:38 For this recipe, we don't have leftover tandoori chicken,

00:42 so we're going to start by approximating our own.

00:45 Here I have a couple pounds

00:46 of boneless, skinless chicken thighs.

00:49 This is the best type of chicken to use for butter chicken

00:51 because it stays tender and juicy

00:53 even after it's been broiled

00:55 and then tossed into this flavorful gravy.

00:58 We're gonna cut them into one and a half inch size chunks.

01:01 We're gonna get our chopped chicken

01:04 into a super flavorful marinade now.

01:07 This yogurt spice marinade is gonna have a lot

01:09 of the ingredients that are gonna go

01:11 in the tomato butter gravy later on.

01:13 Into our bowl, we're going to put our yogurt,

01:16 garlic, ginger, garam masala,

01:21 Kashmiri chili, salt, and lemon juice.

01:26 (upbeat music)

01:28 Kashmiri chili is an amazing ingredient

01:35 and super great in this recipe.

01:37 It is very flavorful without being spicy.

01:41 You can find it online.

01:42 You can find it in a lot of specialty Indian stores.

01:45 However, if you don't have it,

01:46 you can also sub it for three parts paprika

01:49 to one part cayenne.

01:50 We're gonna toss the chicken in the spice yogurt,

01:53 get it all fully covered,

01:55 and then top it with some plastic wrap

01:57 and get it into the fridge for an hour to marinate.

01:59 So here we have our marinated chicken

02:03 and now we're going to get it on a sheet pan

02:06 and under the broiler.

02:07 If you happen to have a tandoori oven in your home,

02:11 by all means use that.

02:13 I do not have that luxury,

02:14 so I'm going to use a foil covered sheet pan

02:17 and the broiler to mimic a tandoori oven effect.

02:21 You could also use a grill if you want.

02:23 Before we even start, let's talk about the sheet pan.

02:27 Typical sheet pan, but you must use foil.

02:32 The foil is going to make cleanup so much easier, trust me.

02:36 We're gonna get our chicken onto the sheet tray

02:38 and spread it out into an even layer.

02:41 We're gonna broil this on high for 15 minutes,

02:45 flipping once about halfway through

02:47 until the chicken is fully cooked.

02:52 While our chicken is broiling,

02:54 we're gonna start on our makhni sauce.

02:57 Makhni means butter,

02:58 so this literally does mean butter chicken.

03:02 We're gonna get a large skillet over medium heat

03:05 and add to that our butter and our tomato paste.

03:08 We're gonna cook, stirring all the while

03:10 for about five minutes

03:11 until that tomato paste turns a deep brick red.

03:14 Once our tomato paste mixture is dark brick red,

03:20 we are gonna add our serrano chili

03:22 and our ginger and stir about a minute

03:25 until they're fragrant.

03:26 Then we will add our dried spices,

03:29 cumin, garam masala, and Kashmiri chili powder.

03:32 At this point, we can add in our heavy cream,

03:41 water, salt, and dried fenugreek.

03:52 Our chicken is now done broiling,

03:54 so we can add that in, bring it up to a boil,

03:57 reduce the heat to a simmer,

03:59 and let it cook until the chicken is super tender

04:02 and the sauce is slightly reduced.

04:03 This should take about 15 minutes.

04:05 Mm, it's so tender and juicy,

04:21 and the flavor is out of this world.

04:24 It's spicy, it's buttery, it's creamy, it's rich,

04:28 but not too heavy.

04:29 The Kashmiri chili that we added in here

04:32 gives it that really beautiful spice note

04:36 without making it too spicy.

04:38 And all of that tomato paste that we spent time cooking down

04:41 adds this really great depth and back note

04:44 of that tomato flavor.

04:45 I don't often say this,

04:47 but this chicken tastes like it comes

04:50 from a high-end restaurant.

04:52 Today, I served this with rice and naan

04:55 and a nice kachumber salad,

04:57 but honestly, you don't need to have all that.

04:59 You can choose to serve it with the rice or the naan,

05:02 or you can just eat it on its own.

05:05 I know I sometimes do.

05:06 I'm gonna go eat the rest of this right now.

05:09 For this and other comfort classics,

05:11 stick around here on delish.com.

05:14 (upbeat music)

05:16 (upbeat music)

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