Butter chicken — murgh makhani — was created at the Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi in the 1950s by Kundan Lal Jaggi. The dish was built on ghee. Not vegetable oil, not canola, not the seed oil blend that appears in most restaurant versions today. Ghee is the fat that Indian cuisine cooked in for thousands of years before industrial seed oils arrived.
The difference matters. Ghee's milk-solid residues caramelise during the onion-blooming stage and carry those caramelised compounds through every step of the sauce. The depth of a properly made ghee-based butter chicken is different in kind from the same recipe made with canola. The seed oil version is flat. The ghee version has layers.
The Bhuna Stage
The most important technique in butter chicken is bhuna — cooking the tomato and spice base until the oil separates from the sauce. This is how you know the tomatoes are fully cooked and the raw taste has gone. Look for small pools of orange-red ghee forming on the surface of the sauce after 8-10 minutes of simmering. This is the signal to add the chicken. Skipping this step produces a sauce that tastes bright and sharp rather than deep and complex.
Ghee Butter Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
- 600g (1.3 lb) boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into large pieces
- 2 tbsp ghee (Ancient Organics or Tin Star recommended)
- 1 large onion, finely diced
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp garam masala
- ½ tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder (or regular chilli — adjust to taste)
- 400g (14oz) crushed tomatoes or passata
- 200ml (¾ cup) single cream or coconut cream
- 2 tbsp grass-fed butter
- Sea salt to taste
- Steamed basmati rice and warm naan to serve
Method
- Heat the ghee in a heavy-based saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until deeply golden. Do not rush this stage — undercooked onion produces a raw, sharp flavour that persists through the finished sauce.
- Add the garlic and ginger. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring continuously.
- Add all of the ground spices. Stir for 90 seconds over the heat — you are blooming the spices in the ghee, releasing their fat-soluble aromatic compounds. The mixture should smell intensely fragrant.
- Add the crushed tomatoes. Stir to combine. Increase heat to medium-high and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has reduced and you can see pools of orange ghee separating from the tomato. This is the bhuna stage.
- Add the chicken pieces. Stir to coat in the sauce. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook for 12 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
- Remove from heat. Stir in the cream and butter. Return to the lowest possible heat and simmer for 3 minutes. Do not boil after adding the cream.
- Season with salt. Serve immediately over steamed basmati rice with warm naan.
Ghee or Butter — Which to Use
This recipe uses both — ghee for the initial cooking (high smoke point, deep flavour) and grass-fed butter at the end for the makhani (buttery) richness that gives the dish its name. Using butter throughout produces a richer initial flavour but a higher risk of burning at the sauté stage. Using ghee throughout produces a slightly different, nuttier result. The combination produces the best of both.
Is butter chicken seed oil free?
This recipe is completely seed oil free — ghee and grass-fed butter are the only fats. Most restaurant butter chicken is made with canola or vegetable oil, which is why making it at home is the only reliable way to keep it seed oil free.
Can I use chicken breast instead of thigh?
Thigh is strongly recommended — it remains moist across a wider cooking time range than breast, and its higher fat content contributes to the richness of the sauce. Breast works but must not be overcooked or it will be dry.
What is the best ghee to use?
Ancient Organics A2 Ghee and Tin Star Foods Ghee are the top two widely available options. Both are made from grass-fed butter and have a deep, nutty flavour that works well in Indian cooking.
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