How to Make Restaurant-Style Butter Chicken at Home

Butter chicken is the dish most people order on their first visit to an Indian restaurant. It is also the one home cooks struggle to recreate properly. The colour never comes out quite right. The sauce is too thin or too thick. The chicken turns out dry. Most home versions taste fine but lack the deep, layered character that makes restaurant butter chicken so memorable.

Here is the good news. Restaurant butter chicken is not a difficult recipe. It just needs the right technique, the right ingredients, and a few small details that home cooks usually miss. This guide walks through exactly how to get the colour, creaminess, and flavour right at home using ingredients available at Mini India Grocery.

Where Butter Chicken Actually Comes From

Butter chicken was created at Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi during the 1950s. The kitchen had leftover tandoori chicken at the end of service and needed a way to use it before closing. They simmered the chicken in a sauce of tomato, butter, cream, and spices. The dish that came out of that improvisation became the most ordered Indian curry in the world.

Two things define authentic butter chicken. First, the chicken is tandoori-marinated and pre-cooked, not raw chicken added directly to a sauce. Second, the gravy is built on a tomato base with cream and butter, not the onion-based gravy used for most other Indian curries. Most home recipes skip the tandoori step, which is the main reason home butter chicken tastes like a generic creamy tomato curry rather than the layered, smoky dish served at restaurants.

The Ingredients You Need

You can make excellent butter chicken with ingredients from any well-stocked Indian grocery. The items that matter most are the chilli powder, the ghee, and the masala blend. Cheap substitutes for any of these will show up clearly in the final dish.

For the chicken marinade

• 500g boneless chicken thigh, cut into bite-sized chunks
• 3 tablespoons thick yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
• TRS Kashmiri Chilli Powder = 1 teaspoon. Use this, not regular red chilli, for the vivid restaurant colour.
• Shan Butter Chicken Masala or MDH Tandoori Masala = 1 teaspoon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil or mustard oil

For the butter chicken sauce

• 500g ripe tomatoes (or one tin of chopped tomatoes)
• Amul Pure Ghee = 3 tablespoons
• 50g butter
• 200ml fresh cream
• 1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
• 1 teaspoon TRS Kashmiri Chilli Powder
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 teaspoon kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Salt to taste

To serve

• Daawat Basmati Rice or your preferred long-grain basmati = enough for 4 servings
• Naan or fresh rotis made with Aashirvaad Atta
• Fresh coriander leaves and a wedge of lemon

The Method, Step by Step

Step 1.  Marinate the chicken

Combine all marinade ingredients in a bowl and mix well so every piece of chicken is coated. Cover and refrigerate. The longer the marination, the more tender and flavourful the chicken. Restaurants marinate overnight, which is what produces the characteristic deep colour and soft bite. Even 4 hours makes a noticeable difference compared to a quick 30 minutes.

Step 2.  Cook the chicken separately first

This is the single most important step that home cooks miss. Restaurants always cook the chicken first in a tandoor or under a high broiler before the sauce ever touches it. The chicken needs charred edges and a smoky character before going into the gravy. To replicate this at home, cook the marinated chicken in a very hot pan with a small amount of ghee on high heat for 6 to 8 minutes, turning the pieces so they char on multiple sides. Set aside.

Step 3.  Make a smooth tomato base

In a separate pot, simmer the tomatoes with a cup of water and a teaspoon of salt for 15 minutes until completely soft. Blend until smooth and then pass through a sieve to remove skins and seeds. This sieved tomato puree is what creates the silky restaurant texture. Most home cooks skip the sieving step, which is why home butter chicken sauce often has a grainy, slightly rough quality.

Step 4.  Build the sauce

Heat the ghee in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add ginger garlic paste and fry for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the Kashmiri chilli powder and stir for 10 seconds without burning. Pour in the sieved tomato puree and simmer on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The colour will deepen, and the sauce will reduce. Add the butter and let it melt into the sauce. Stir in the cream slowly so it does not split.

Step 5.  Bring it together and finish

Add the cooked chicken back into the sauce. Simmer on low heat for 5 minutes so the flavours meld. Stir in the garam masala, sugar, and crushed kasuri methi leaves. The kasuri methi is what gives restaurant butter chicken its distinctive aroma, so do not skip it. Finish with a swirl of cream and a sprinkle of fresh coriander.

Three Mistakes That Ruin Home Butter Chicken

Skipping the tandoori step.  Cooking raw marinated chicken straight into the sauce produces a curry, not butter chicken. The smoky, slightly charred character of pre-cooked chicken is essential to what the dish is.

Using regular red chilli powder instead of Kashmiri.  Regular chilli powder is too hot and produces a muddy brown sauce. Kashmiri chilli is mild but vivid, which is how restaurant butter chicken gets its signature orange-red colour without becoming mouth-burning hot.

Adding cream too early or too hot.  Cream goes into a sauce that is warm but not boiling. Pouring cold cream into a bubbling pan causes it to split, producing a grainy, curdled texture instead of silky smoothness.

What to Serve With Butter Chicken

Butter chicken is rich, so the sides should stay simple. Plain basmati rice cooked with a bay leaf and a few green cardamom pods is the standard pairing and the easiest to get right. Soft naan or fresh rotis made from Aashirvaad Atta work equally well for mopping up the sauce. A cucumber raita on the side adds cooling contrast to the richness of the dish.

For a complete meal in under an hour, marinate the chicken in advance and have all the ingredients ready before you start cooking. Once the marination is done, the actual cooking time is about 30 minutes from start to plate.

Get the Ingredients Delivered

Every ingredient in this recipe is available at Mini India Grocery with fast delivery across the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium.

TRS Kashmiri Chilli Powder for the vivid colour that regular chilli cannot produce.

Amul Pure Ghee for the depth of flavour that cooking with ghee adds to the sauce.

Daawat Basmati Rice is the rice that holds its shape and has the long grain character that works with butter chicken.

Aashirvaad Atta for soft naan or rotis to serve alongside.

Shan or MDH Butter Chicken Masala for the masala blend in the marinade.

Free delivery on orders over €29 within the Netherlands. Order online at miniindiagrocery.nl and have everything you need delivered to your door.