Indian Butter Chicken.

I’m posting this recipe since I found it in a magazine (not Pinterest, what a shocker!) and I love it so much I don’t want to lose it and I also want to share it! It’s super easy and the best butter chicken recipe I’ve tried so far. The recipe was for a pressure cooker, and since I don’t have one I had to make this kind of on my own and figure out how to do it myself in a pan. This doesn’t compare to the yumminess you get at a restaurant but it’s a good home version! I’m still on the lookout for the best recipe I can cook at home but until then, this will do.

Ingredients:

• 4 Tbsp Butter, unsalted
• 1 Lb Chicken, cut into small pieces
• 1 Cup Carrots, sliced
• 1/2 Onion, chopped
• 5 Cloves of Garlic, minced
• 1 14.5oz Can Diced Tomatoes, blended in a blender
• 1/4 Cup Heavy Cream OR 4oz Cream Cheese*
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 1/2 Tsp Cinnamon
• 1 Tsp Curry Powder
• 1 Tsp Garam Masala
• 1 Tsp Paprika
• 1/2 Tsp Cumin Seeds
• 1/4 Tsp Pepper

*I recently used cream cheese because I didn’t have heavy cream on hand at the time and it still turned out amazing! You might be able to use coconut milk but I have yet to try that.

1. Melt the butter in a large pan on medium heat. Add onions and garlic and sauté for about 2 minutes. Add your chicken. Cook chicken until you no longer see any pink (do not cook all of the way through).
2. Add all of the spices to the pan and stir to coat all of the chicken. Sauté for about 30 seconds – 1 minute.
3. Add your tomato puree* and carrots and stir to combine all ingredients. Turn heat down to low and simmer for about 20 minutes.
4. Once the 20 minutes is up, add your heavy cream OR cream cheese and stir. If using cream cheese, stir constantly to make sure it melts and gets incorporated evenly within the sauce. Cook for another 5 minutes or so on low heat.
5. Serve over rice or with some naan. Garnish with cilantro if you’d like.

*For a smoother sauce you can sauté your onions and garlic separately and add them to the diced tomatoes to puree and add this to your chicken after cooking until all the pink disappears. You could probably add them into the tomatoes raw, but I feel like it would be more flavorful if you sautéed them for a few minutes first. DO YOU BOO BOO.

I wish I had a nice picture to add but I always dig right in before I even remember to take one! I really like using cream cheese instead of the heavy cream because I never end up using the entire carton of heavy cream and it gets wasted. Left over cream cheese can easily be added to pasta sauces to make them creamy and obviously be used for bagels! My favorite rice lately has been brown rice, but basmati is my favorite white rice and both would go really well with this curry in my humble opinion!

Recipe was found in a Family Circle magazine. I omitted a couple of spices from the recipe because I didn’t have them on hand and I also added a couple ingredients, too.