Slow Cooker Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani)

Slow Cooker Butter Chicken

Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani in India) is a mild curry and one of the best chicken recipes in India. Marinated chicken is stewed in a buttery tomato sauce. It’s a traditional recipe from the North of India and a very popular dish. 

It’s believed that it originated between 1930 - 1935 in a restaurant in Delhi. This restaurant prepared a lot of tandoori chicken but sometimes had some leftovers, which became too dry. By stewing these chicken in a creamy tomato sauce they were soft and moist. And Murgh Makhani became a beloved dish. 

Its preparation is quite the same as chicken tikka masala. Aromatic golden chicken pieces in a creamy curry sauce. The big difference is that the spices get a lot of attention with chicken tikka masala. With Butter chicken, the buttery sauce is specific for this recipe.

Butter Chicken is delicious when served with Naan bread (like this garlic naan bread), papadums, or pilav rice. Serve a green salad, sugar snaps, cucumber raita, or green beans as a veggie side dish.

What do you need for Chicken Makhani?

To prepare this slow cooker butter chicken, you need the following ingredients. You can find the correct amounts in the recipe card at the bottom of the blog:

• Chicken breast - Use boneless and skinless chicken breast.
• Butter - Use unsalted butter to give the sauce creaminess. You could also use ghee. Ghee is clarified butter that is often used in the Indian kitchen. 
• Onions, ginger, and garlic - As usual, are the three spices used to give a base flavor.
• Garam Masala - An Indian roasted spice mix. Every region got its style of preparation. You can get it in almost any supermarket nowadays.
• Spices - This recipe contains a few spices to flavor the chicken marinade and the sauce. For the chicken marinade, turmeric, cumin, chili, and salt are used. The sauce contains cumin, coriander, chili, and salt. All spices are available at the supermarkets (one of the best things about this butter chicken).
• Yogurt - Add yogurt to the marinade to make the meat more tender. The sour will decrease proteins in the chicken breast. And thus, your chicken will become softer.
• Whole peeled tomatoes - for the buttery tomato sauce. Use canned tomatoes because they’ve got the optimal flavor. You could use sieved tomatoes (or passata), but that isn’t necessary because you prepare this in the crockpot.
• Sugar - a bit of sugar will enhance the flavor of this sauce and will sweeten it.
• Cream - to give the sauce that creamy touch. If you want a lighter version, you could opt for ¾ cup light cream and ¼ cup milk. 

How do you prepare Crockpot Murgh Makhani?

You can find a printable recipe with a step-by-step description at the bottom of this blog.

1. Mix the yogurt, garlic, ginger, garam masala, turmeric, cumin, chili, and salt. Add the chicken cubes and let them marinate for at least 3 hours (but you can marinate them overnight).
2. Fry the onions until translucent, and add garlic and ginger. After a minute, add coriander, cumin, and garam masala. Stir-fry for three minutes and add to the slow cooker.
3. Sear the chicken in the remaining butter until golden brown. Add that to the crockpot.
4. Add the tomatoes, chili, salt, cream, and sugar. Put a lid on the slow cooker and turn it on—low heat for 6 hours or high heat for 4 hours. I’ll serve it like this. But you could remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and purée the sauce with a blender (or immersion blender). Then, add the chicken to the puréed sauce.