Murgh makhani began, the story goes, as a way to give yesterday's tandoori chicken a second life in a tomato-butter gravy. It has since become the most ordered dish on the Indian menu — silky, gently spiced, finished with cream and a pinch of dried fenugreek. Our version is honest about the one substitution: a home broiler stands in for the tandoor, and nothing is lost for it.
At a glance
- Prep
- 20 mins
- Cook
- 30 mins
- Total
- 50 mins
- Serves
- 4
Plus at least 1 hour marinating the chicken.
Ingredients
- 800g boneless chicken thighs, cut into large pieces
- 150g plain yogurt
- 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste (for the marinade), plus 1 tbsp for the gravy
- 2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder, divided
- 1 tsp garam masala, plus more to finish
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
- 800g crushed tomatoes (passata)
- 75g butter, divided
- 120ml heavy cream
- 1 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi), crushed between your palms
- 1 tbsp honey or sugar, to taste
- Salt
Method
- Marinate the chicken: combine the yogurt, 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste, 1 tsp of the chilli powder, the garam masala, lemon juice and salt. Fold in the chicken, cover, and rest for at least 1 hour — overnight is better.
- Heat a broiler (grill) on high. Spread the chicken on a lined tray and broil until charred at the edges and just cooked through, 8-10 minutes, turning once. Set aside with its juices.
- Melt half the butter in a wide pan over medium heat. Add the remaining 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste and cook until it loses its raw edge, about 1 minute.
- Add the crushed tomatoes and the remaining chilli powder. Simmer, stirring now and then, for 15-20 minutes until the sauce is deep brick-red and thick enough to part behind a spoon.
- Take the pan off the heat and blend the sauce smooth (or pass it through a sieve), then return it to the pan.
- Add the chicken and its juices, the cream and the honey. Simmer gently for 5-8 minutes — never a hard boil — until the gravy is silky and the chicken is cooked through.
- Finish with the remaining butter, the crushed kasuri methi and a last pinch of garam masala. Rest 5 minutes and serve with naan or jeera rice.
Butter chicken (murgh makhani) is widely traced to the Moti Mahal kitchen in Daryaganj, Delhi in the 1950s, where leftover tandoori chicken was simmered in a gravy of tomato, butter and cream. Its precise authorship is disputed between rival restaurateurs, so we credit the Moti Mahal kitchen and its era rather than any single name.
Sources
Cook alongside
A table that begins with butter chicken tends to wander — these are the dishes we set down beside it.
From the channel
Cook to our latest
The newest long-form set from the channel, for the hour the pot is on and the room is settling.
Brass, marigold, warm light — we set the table the way we set the room, so the meal and the music meet in the same mood. Set the table: Indian home decor
Music to cook to
This is a candlelit dish. We set it to our slow evening sitar — unhurried, a little romantic, the tempo of a table that has stopped checking the time.