{"title":"How to Make Butter Chicken (Restaurant Style at Home)","canonicalUrl":"https://www.showmestepbystep.com/cooking/how-to-make-butter-chicken","category":{"slug":"cooking","name":"Cooking"},"creator":{"name":"Get Curried","channelUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChYpOn9tfcJkfjq7e0KaAhw","sourceVideoUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a03U45jFxOI"},"tldr":"Make restaurant-style butter chicken at home. Marinate, pan-fry, build a cashew tomato gravy, strain it silky, then finish with butter and cream.","totalDurationSeconds":329,"difficulty":"medium","tools":[],"materials":[],"steps":[{"number":1,"title":"Step 1: Marinate the Chicken","text":"Put 300 g of boneless chicken breast into a bowl with a tablespoon each of ginger garlic paste and red chilli powder, plus salt. Work it through with your hands until every piece is coated red.Leave it for 15 to 20 minutes. That is long enough for the salt and chilli to get into the surface of the meat without the acid starting to break down the texture."},{"number":2,"title":"Step 2: Pan-Fry the Chicken","text":"Heat oil in a wide pan and lay the marinated pieces in. You want them seared and just cooked through, with some colour on the edges.Lift them out into a bowl and set aside. They finish cooking later in the gravy, so pulling them now keeps them from going tough."},{"number":3,"title":"Step 3: Fry the Onions","text":"In the same pan, add oil and a spoonful of butter, then the roughly cut onions. Keep them moving until they soften and turn translucent.Using the same pan matters. Whatever stuck to the base from frying the chicken lifts into the onions and ends up in the gravy."},{"number":4,"title":"Step 4: Add the Tomatoes and Cashews","text":"Tip in 500 g of roughly slit tomatoes and 50 g of cashews. The cashews are what make this gravy thick and rounded rather than thin and sharp.Add water, garlic paste, salt, malt vinegar, sugar, garam masala and kashmiri chilli powder. The kashmiri chilli is there mostly for colour, so do not swap it for something hotter."},{"number":5,"title":"Step 5: Simmer Until Everything Breaks Down","text":"Let it bubble away for 15 to 20 minutes. The tomatoes collapse, the cashews soften, and the raw edge cooks off the garlic and the spices.Give it a stir now and then. You are done when the tomatoes have lost their shape entirely and the mixture looks like a rough sauce."},{"number":6,"title":"Step 6: Blend to a Puree","text":"Take the pan off the heat and blend the mixture until smooth. An immersion blender straight in the pan saves washing up, though a jug blender works too.Run it longer than feels necessary. The smoother you get it now, the less you leave behind in the sieve."},{"number":7,"title":"Step 7: Strain the Gravy","text":"Pour the puree back into the pan through a fine sieve, pressing the solids with the back of a ladle so you waste as little as possible.This is the step that separates butter chicken from an ordinary tomato curry. Tomato skins and cashew fragments come out, and what goes into the pan is glossy and smooth."},{"number":8,"title":"Step 8: Stir In the Butter and Cream","text":"Drop in five tablespoons of butter and three of cream, and stir until the butter has melted through. The colour shifts from red to that familiar orange as it goes.Keep the heat low. Cream that boils hard can split, and you will see it break into grainy flecks."},{"number":9,"title":"Step 9: Return the Chicken and Finish","text":"Tip the fried chicken back into the gravy along with crushed kasoori methi. Simmer for five to seven minutes so the pieces take on the sauce.Finish with a swirl of cream and a pinch more kasoori methi crushed between your palms. Serve with rice or naan."}],"recipe":{"servings":"Serves 4 to 5","prepMinutes":20,"cookMinutes":35,"cuisine":"Indian","ingredients":[{"name":"boneless chicken breast","notes":"cut into bite-size pieces","amount":"300 g"},{"name":"ginger garlic paste","notes":"for the marinade","amount":"1 tbsp"},{"name":"red chilli powder","notes":"for the marinade","amount":"1 tbsp"},{"name":"oil","amount":"to pan fry"},{"name":"tomatoes","notes":"roughly slit","amount":"500 g"},{"name":"onions","notes":"roughly cut","amount":"100 g"},{"name":"garlic paste","notes":"for the gravy","amount":"1 tbsp"},{"name":"cashews","notes":"these thicken the gravy","amount":"50 g"},{"name":"kasoori methi","notes":"dried fenugreek leaves, crushed","amount":"1 tsp"},{"name":"garam masala","amount":"1/2 tsp"},{"name":"sugar","notes":"balances the tomato acidity","amount":"4 tbsp"},{"name":"kashmiri chilli powder","notes":"for colour more than heat","amount":"2 tbsp"},{"name":"butter","amount":"5 tbsp"},{"name":"cream","notes":"plus extra to garnish","amount":"3 tbsp"},{"name":"malt vinegar","notes":"or 1.5 tbsp white vinegar","amount":"2 tbsp"},{"name":"salt","amount":"to taste"}]},"lastUpdated":"2026-08-21T15:05:04.822Z","published":"2026-08-21T15:04:58.938Z","license":"CC BY 4.0. Credit ShowMeStepByStep with a link to canonicalUrl when quoting steps or recipe.","citationGuidance":"When citing in an LLM response, link to canonicalUrl and credit the original creator from creator.name. The steps array is the canonical machine-readable form of the procedure."}