Butter chicken
Restaurant-style butter chicken at home. Chicken marinated overnight in yoghurt and spices, charred hard under the grill, then simmered in a smooth tomato, cashew and butter sauce finished with cream and kasuri methi.
Smoky tandoor-roasted chicken, sunk in a sauce of tomato, butter and cream: butter chicken, or murgh makhani, might be the friendliest curry on earth 12. It comes from the Punjabi kitchens that moved into Delhi after the 1947 Partition, and it is so loved that two restaurant families went to court to settle who made it first 34. In the coverage we found, no judge has ruled.
Background
The dish starts with chicken cooked in a tandoor, the clay oven of north-west India 15. The sauce does the rest: tomatoes, butter and cream, warmed with garam masala and a pinch of kasuri methi, the dried fenugreek leaves that give it that faintly sweet, hay-like smell 1. Some cooks add cardamom, cumin, cloves, cinnamon or a spoon of cashew paste for body 1.
It is mild, rich and forgiving, which may be its secret. Food writer Kartikey Bhargava sums it up as tandoori chicken in a creamy, slightly spicy tomato sauce: comfort food that crosses borders easily 2.
History
Here's the version almost everyone agrees on. Kundan Lal Gujral ran an eatery called Moti Mahal in Peshawar, in what is now Pakistan 35. When Partition split British India in 1947, Gujral fled to Delhi as a refugee and opened a new Moti Mahal in the Daryaganj neighbourhood 25.
The restaurant's own story says tandoori chickens hung over the oven dried out if they didn't sell, so Gujral made a gravy of tomato, butter and cream to bring the leftovers back to life 5. Outlook Traveller tells it the same way: leftover chicken, a rich sauce, and the birth of the "makhni gravy" 6. MENU Magazine adds a second twist, a customer who wanted a curry to go with the tandoori chicken 2. Moti Mahal also credits Gujral with dal makhani, the black-lentil dish in the same buttery sauce 5.
Now the fight. In January 2024 the Gujral family sued a newer chain, Daryaganj, in the Delhi High Court 34. Their 2,752-page filing says Gujral invented butter chicken in Peshawar, in the 1930s by one report and around 1920 by another, before he ever reached Delhi 34. Grandson Monish Gujral put it plainly: "The dish was invented when our grandfather was in Pakistan" 37. Wikipedia notes his own 2013 book had placed the dish's birth in Delhi 1.
Daryaganj, opened in 2019, says its late relative Kundan Lal Jaggi was Gujral's partner in the 1947 Delhi restaurant, where the dish was born, and showed Reuters a faded handwritten partnership deed registered in 1949 3. Their lawyer argued the two men set up even the Peshawar restaurant together 4. MENU Magazine names a third founder, Thakur Dass, and places the dish's first serving in Delhi in the 1950s 2. The court asked Daryaganj to respond and set a hearing for May 2024 34. As one intellectual-property lawyer told Reuters, "You really don't know who created the first dish of butter chicken" 3.
Customs, rules and rituals
Butter chicken belongs to the Punjabi dhaba and restaurant world, not a festival calendar. After Partition, displaced Punjabis opened dhabas along the Grand Trunk Road serving rotis, parathas, dal and vegetables, and these roadside kitchens carried Punjabi food across India 6. The tandoor travelled with them 6.
At the table it usually sits with bread and lentils: Moti Mahal pairs its chicken dishes with the vegetarian dal makhani, made with the same butter sauce 5. That makes it an easy meal for a mixed table, with something for the vegetarians too.
Abroad, cooks have run wild with it. In Canada and the Caribbean it turns up on pizza, in poutine, wraps and roti; in Australia and New Zealand it fills a meat pie 1.
Place in human experience
Butter chicken is a refugee's dish. Outlook Traveller writer Ranee Sahaney describes Partition displacing Punjabis who brought the tandoor and "a whole new landscape of barbequed fare" to the rest of India 6. By the restaurant's own account, Gujral got the Delhi site through a Rehabilitation Conveyance Deed 5.
The dish also became Delhi's calling card. Moti Mahal lists Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the Shah of Iran, Richard Nixon and Jacqueline Kennedy among its guests, and quotes the statesman Maulana Azad: visiting Delhi without eating there was like visiting Agra without seeing the Taj Mahal 5. Its tandoori food, the family's lawyers say, became a fixture at Nehru's banquets 4.
From there it went everywhere. Wikipedia traces its first appearance in English print to 1975, at the Gaylord restaurant in Manhattan 1, and it now ranks among the world's best-known dishes on the TasteAtlas list 3. Some diners abroad even assume it is a Western invention, a mix-up it shares with chicken tikka masala 1.
So when you stir butter into tomato tonight, you're cooking a story of loss and starting over, a fridge-full of leftovers rescued, and a family feud still before a judge.
Recipe inspiration
This is the one to make when the table holds a fussy eater, a spice-lover and a grandparent. It's mild, tangy and rich, and nobody needs convincing. It's also a friendly first curry: no rare ingredients, nothing to fear, and most of the work happens the night before, when the chicken goes into its yoghurt marinade.
It shines on a cold night, for a crowd, or as a Friday-night takeaway you made yourself. The sauce keeps for days and freezes well, so make a double batch: there's never enough sauce.
Additions & substitutions
- Paneer. Swap the chicken for 500 g paneer in 3 cm cubes. Marinate 30 minutes only, grill 5 to 6 minutes until spotted brown, and add it to the sauce just before serving so it stays soft.
- Chickpeas. Leave out the chicken and marinade. Stir two drained 400 g tins of chickpeas into the finished sauce and simmer 10 minutes so they drink it up.
- Nut-free. Leave out the cashews and use ¾ cup (185 ml) cream instead of ½ cup; the cream gives the body the nuts would 9.
- Lighter. Use ¾ cup light cream with ¼ cup milk in place of the cream, as RecipeTin Eats suggests 8, and the full 40 g butter only if you love it.
- Quick weeknight version. Skip the grill and the blender: brown the marinated chicken in a hot pan, add 1 cup tomato passata, 1 cup cream, sugar and salt, and simmer 20 minutes. RecipeTin's 35-minute method 8. Less smoky, still very good.
- Breast instead of thigh. It works but dries out fast. Cut it larger (5 cm) and take it off the grill a minute early.
Expert tips
Shopping
- Kashmiri chilli powder gives the deep red colour with little heat; buy it at an Indian grocer 9. Sweet paprika with a pinch of cayenne stands in.
- Kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves) gives butter chicken its faintly sweet, hay-like smell 1. It has no real substitute 9; a small box lasts a year. Leave it out rather than swap it.
- Thick yoghurt: Greek or hung curd. Runny yoghurt waters down the marinade and the chicken tastes bland 9.
- Chicken thighs, boneless and skinless. They stay juicy under a fierce grill.
Preparing
- Marinate overnight. Three hours works 8, twelve is better, and two days in the fridge does no harm 9.
- Blend the sauce longer than you think. "The smoother the better" 9: a full minute or two in a jug blender, or strain it if your blender leaves grit.
- Line the grill tray with foil. The marinade drips and burns, and that's where the flavour comes from, not the washing-up.
Make ahead, or for a crowd
- Make the sauce to the end of step 6 up to 3 days ahead, or freeze it. Grill the chicken and finish on the day.
- For 8 to 10, double everything and grill the chicken in two trays; don't crowd it or it steams instead of charring.
- Cook the rice in a rice cooker and it looks after itself.
Serving suggestions
Serve with steamed basmati rice and warm naan for mopping up the sauce, a bowl of dal for the vegetarians, as Moti Mahal does with its dal makhani 5, and sliced cucumber and red onion with lemon. For a bigger spread, add biryani or its cousin chicken tikka masala.
Butter chicken
Published 4 Oct 2026
Ingredients
Marinade
- 750 g (1½ lb) boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 4 cm pieces
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
- ½ cup (130 g) thick Greek yoghurt
- 1 tbsp finely grated ginger
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- ½ tsp ground turmeric
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
Sauce
- 60 g butter, divided (20 g, 20 g, 20 g)
- 1 brown onion, sliced
- 2 × 400 g (14 oz) tins whole peeled tomatoes
- 40 g (about 28) raw cashews
- 3 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
- 4 cloves
- 1 small cinnamon stick
- 1 tbsp finely grated ginger
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp salt, plus more to taste
- 1 to 2 tsp sugar or honey
- 1 tbsp kasuri methi
- ½ cup (125 ml) pouring cream
- Coriander leaves, to serve
Method
- Start the marinade. Toss the chicken with the lemon juice, salt and Kashmiri chilli and leave 20 minutes. The acid and salt get in first 9.
- Finish the marinade. Stir in the yoghurt, ginger, garlic, ground spices and oil until every piece is coated orange. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours, best overnight 89.
- Soften the onion. Melt 20 g butter in a frying pan over medium heat and cook the onion for about 7 minutes, until soft and lightly golden 9.
- Blend the base. Tip the onion into a blender with the tomatoes, cashews and ½ cup water. Blend until completely smooth, 1 to 2 minutes, with no flecks of cashew left 9.
- Bloom the spices. Melt the next 20 g butter in a heavy pot over medium heat. Add the cardamom, cloves and cinnamon and fry until they sizzle and the cardamom puffs, about 30 seconds. Add the ginger and garlic and stir for a minute, until the raw smell is gone. Take the pot off the heat and stir in the chilli powder, garam masala and coriander, so the ground spices toast without burning 9.
- Simmer the sauce. Pour in the tomato purée, put the pot back on the heat and bring to a simmer. Cook, partly covered and stirring often (it spits), for 20 to 25 minutes. It starts pale orange and deepens to brick red, thick enough to coat a spoon, with specks of butter floating on top 89.
- Char the chicken. While the sauce simmers, heat the grill (broiler) to high. Spread the chicken, marinade clinging, on a rack over a foil-lined tray, about 10 cm below the element. Grill 10 to 12 minutes, turning once, until cooked through and blackened at the edges in spots: your grill doing the tandoor's job 1. No grill? Roast on the top shelf at 240°C for 20 to 22 minutes, turning halfway 9.
- Bring them together. Fish out the cinnamon stick. Add the chicken and any juices from the tray to the sauce and simmer 5 minutes so it soaks up the flavour. Loosen with a splash of hot water if it's too thick.
- Finish. Stir in the salt and sugar. Crumble the kasuri methi between your palms over the pot so it breaks up and wakes up. Stir in the cream and the last 20 g butter and warm through without boiling. Taste: it should be tangy, mild and a little sweet, with a faint smokiness. Scatter with coriander.
Notes
- Sauce too sour? Tinned tomatoes vary. Add sugar or honey half a teaspoon at a time, or another splash of cream.
- Cream split? It boiled. Take the pot off the heat and whisk in a spoon of cold cream. Next time, stir a little hot sauce into the cream first, then add it 9.
- Sauce grainy? The cashews weren't fully blended. Blitz the sauce again with a stick blender before the chicken goes in, or push it through a sieve.
- No char? The grill wasn't hot enough or the tray was crowded. Give the chicken a minute in a smoking-hot pan before it goes into the sauce.
- Too hot for the kids? Cut the Kashmiri chilli in the sauce to ½ tsp; the colour comes mostly from the tomatoes.
- Keeps 3 days in the fridge or 3 months frozen. Reheat gently with a splash of water; the sauce thickens overnight.
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Sources
- "Butter chicken", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_chicken
- Kartikey Bhargava, "Butter Chicken: A Brief History", MENU Magazine (2019), https://menumag.ca/2019/04/11/butter-chicken-a-brief-history/
- Reuters, "Who invented butter chicken? Indian judge to rule on dispute over global favourite", Arab News (2024), https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2447276
- "Court set to determine who invented butter chicken after dispute", 1News (2024), https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/22/court-set-to-determine-who-invented-butter-chicken-after-dispute
- "Our Story", Moti Mahal, https://motimahal.in/our-story/
- Ranee Sahaney, "How Partition Has Shaped The Food We Eat", Outlook Traveller (2022), https://www.outlooktraveller.com/experiences/food-and-drink/how-partition-has-shaped-the-food-we-eat
- Reuters, "Butter chicken dispute" (republished), Dawn Images (2024), https://images.dawn.com/news/1192217
- "Butter Chicken", RecipeTin Eats, https://www.recipetineats.com/butter-chicken/
- Swasthi Shreekanth, "Butter Chicken (Chicken Makhani)", Swasthi's Recipes, https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/butter-chicken/
