Quick and Easy Butter Chicken
This is a great recipe for a quick and easy, delicious and comforting butter chicken dinner. It uses just a few common ingredients, and is both budget friendly and reasonably healthy (as far as any dish with ‘butter’ in the title goes). It uses a lot less butter than many butter chicken recipes but still tastes rich and satisfying. While flavorful, it’s not ‘spicy’ and is a favorite with the kids and the whole family! You’ll find yourself putting this one in the rotation and coming back to it time and time again.
Recipe Overview
While real authentic genuine butter chicken incorporates a multitude of spices and ingredients, this recipe gets by primarily on a scoop of curry powder and a can of tomato soup. Sounds pretty sketchy I’ll admit! Give it a try however and you’ll be a weeknight dinner convert.
Since this recipe is so quick and easy to prepare, we’ll more or less have the whole thing done in the time it takes to make a pot of rice.
First things first – we’ll preheat the oven to 350F. This will be to warm up the Naan bread that we’ve simply purchased from the grocery store.
(***NOTE: Including Naan bread in this meal is totally optional. The calorie calculation of 640 cal/serving for this recipe does NOT include Naan bread. Nutritional information for the Naan bread will come on the particular bread purchased if you decide to include it. If not including Naan, there is NO NEED TO PREHEAT THE OVEN – we won’t be using it!)
Some people (including my former self) are nervous about cooking rice ‘from scratch’ and tend towards the ‘heat and eat’ options in the supermarket. This recipe provides all the steps necessary for cooking rice from scratch – you may never buy ‘heat and eat’ rice again! From-scratch rice is so flexible, economical and easy to cook there’s really no need for anything else.
Anyway, with our oven warming for the Naan bread, we’ll pull out our ingredients, chop our chicken and get our rice started. Once we get the rice started on the cooktop, we’ll start the chicken cooking. Before we know it, all will be done and served and we will once again be basking in the adoration of our enamored culinary audience:)
Step One - Preheat the Oven to 350F
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
See! Wasn’t that easy!?!!
2. If not including Naan bread in this meal, turn the oven back off again. We won’t be using it!
Still pretty easy, right?
Step Two - Start the Rice
I always make this dish with basmati rice, but if you have another type of rice on hand, do as you will. Most anything will be fine.
As far as the ‘white rices’ go, basmati is a delicious and reasonably healthy choice. Check out this great article from WebMD for more information: Health Benefits of Basmati Rice
The exact amount of rice you cook is flexible. Making more or less is up to you. For four people, 1 1/2 to 2 cups of dry rice will be about the right range.
You want a medium sized pot with a reasonably snug lid, around 2 quarts / 6-7″ diameter type thing.
Put the appropriate amount of dry rice in the pot, then add double that amount in cold water. Toss in around a tablespoon of butter, and some salt (about 1/2 tsp of table/fine sea salt or 1tsp kosher/coarse sea salt).
Give it all a stir and put in over a medium-ish burner, uncovered, to bring it to a boil.
Now we’re going to move on to step 3, starting the chicken, but we’re not going to forget about our rice along the way!
Every minute or two while the rice is coming to a boil, we will give it a quick stir (we don’t want it to start sticking to the bottom of the pot).
Once we see that the rice has reached a boil (it will get obviously bubbly), we will turn the burner down quite low, give it one last stir, put the lid on the pot, and start a 15 minute timer. The picture above shows the rice just coming to a boil and ready to be turned down and covered.
During this 15 minutes (as the butter chicken is in process), we will NOT do anything with the rice, including lifting the lid to check it etc. We want all the steam to stay in, apart from what little escapes around the lid of our pot to let us know that all is well.
After the 15 minute timer goes off, we’ll turn off the burner under the rice and remove from heat. We’ll still leave it covered and won’t peek for at least 5 minutes or until ready to serve.
Step 3 - Cook the Butter Chicken
There are just a few simple steps and ingredients in this part of the recipe:
Chicken: Boneless and skinless is easiest. Otherwise remove skin & bone. Thighs and breasts both work great. The quantity is flexible, could be more, could be less, but around 1 1/2 pounds for 4 people is generally about right. If you haven’t chopped the chicken yet, chop it up in to bite sized chunks now.
Butter: 3 tablespoons or thereabouts, exact amount not really critical, salted or unsalted.
Start browning the chicken in the pan with the butter, over medium heat. Stir the chicken in the butter as it melts to coat.
Curry Powder: Standard yellow supermarket curry powder is actually already a combination of spices and provides all we need for this dish. One tablespoon is just right.
Add the curry powder to the buttered chicken after the chicken has just started to brown. Stir to coat.
Minced Garlic: Ah garlic, is there anything it doesn’t improve? A scoop of minced garlic (around 1/2 to 1 tablespoon or so according to taste) is perfect. Also fine is garlic powder, about half a tablespoon, or a couple of chopped fresh cloves. Once the chicken is coated with the butter and curry powder, add the garlic and again stir to coat.
Salt: Optional. A teaspoon full of kosher or coarse sea salt works (or 1/2 tsp table or fine sea salt). Add with the garlic.
Can of Tomato Soup: The secret weapon of this recipe. The standard 10 3/4 oz can of condensed tomato soup.
Can of milk: After pouring out the condensed soup, use the empty can to measure up one can of milk. Skim, 1%, 2%, whole, whatever.
We’ll add the soup and then the milk after the chicken mixture has more or less cooked through. We’ll bring it all to a gentle boil, and then roll the heat back a little lower to simmer and thicken until serving time. As it cools it will thicken a bit more as well.
Frozen Peas?: Totally optional. They won’t make the recipe taste any better, but they’re not bad and they add a little punch of nutrition. Around a cup, cup and a half or as you deem fit. These can be added just a minute or two before the soup and milk.
Handful of fresh spinach or a block of frozen spinach?: Sure that works too, thaw the block first in the microwave according to instructions if using frozen, and then add either a couple of mintes before the soup and milk.
Other ingredients could be grape tomatoes cut in half, bits of peppers, diced onion, whatever you want to do, it’s a very flexible recipe. Add them in at the appropriate time for their cooking requirements.
As an aside for our Canadian friends, the venerable Tomato Soup maker Campbell’s (as immortalized by Andy Warhol) uses a different recipe that includes more calories (by 20 per serving), more salt, and more sketchy ingredients. I may have to write a post examining this one day…
Step 4 - Warm the Naan Bread
A package of supermarket Naan bread really tops this meal off. It’s great to use chunks of Naan to scoop up some of the rice and chicken – one of the great culinary pleasures!
As pointed out above, this IS an optional step and you’re going to have a great meal with or without it. I’ve included it a number of times and it’s always a treat, but if it isn’t on hand when I decide to make the recipe, I’ve left it out a bunch of times as well, and the recipe is still very well enjoyed. (In fact, the more observant amongst you may have noticed a complete lack of Naan bread in the pictures I took for this article! Whoops! I can assure you however, that the finished product still received unprompted rave reviews regardless, even though it’s been enjoyed many times by this crowd!).
Amyway, if including the Naan, read the package directions, which may include instructions for pan heating. That’s fine if you want to do that, but it usually works quite well to wrap a stack of them in aluminum foil and warm in a 350F oven for 10 minutes or so.
Our target for serving time is around 5 minutes after our rice’s 15 minute timer has expired. So we’ll want to pop our stack of Naan in the oven with about 5 minutes left on the timer.
When the timer ends, we can start it with another 5 minutes and the Naan should be good to go right around then, along with the rice and the butter chicken.
Serve and Enjoy!
If everything has gone according to plan, we’ll be ready to plate and serve right about 5 minutes after the rice timer has ended. If you want to set a 5 minute timer once the 15 minute timer ends, go ahead. This timing is not exactly critical however.
By now our rice has cooked and rested for 5 minutes or so, and is ready to serve. Our Naans have been in the oven for 10 minutes-ish and are warm and good to go. Our butter chicken has been cooking for something like 20 minutes and should be firming up a bit (a bit runny and saucy is still desirable to spread through the rice).
Sometimes the chicken looks like it might want just another couple minutes to cook, which is fine. Turn the oven off – the Naan will only benefit from a few more minutes, and the rice is fine to sit a while (still covered of course!). In the picture above we see that the butter chicken sauce has just thickened to the point that when we scrape the bottom of the pan with the spatula, it doesn’t immediately run right back. This is the perfect time to stop cooking it.
Once the chicken looks just right, serve it over the rice with Naan on the side. Enjoy!
Easy Butter Chicken with Rice and Naan Bread
Equipment
- 1 Frying Pan Preferably non-stick, and a decent size to hold the chicken and sauce
- 1 Pot with Lid For cooking the rice
- 1 Oven Pre-heated to 350 to warm the Naan bread.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lbs Boneless, Skinless Chicken (Thigh or Breast)
- 1 1/2 cups Basmati Rice
- 3 cups cold water
- 4 tbsp Butter (divided)
- 2 tsp Kosher Salt (or 1 tsp table salt), divided
- 1 tbsp Curry Powder
- 1 tbsp Minced Garlic
- 10 3/4 oz Standard Can of Condensed Tomato Soup
- 10 3/4 oz Milk
- 1 cup Frozen Peas (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F (to warm the Naan bread)
- Add the rice and water to the rice pot, along with 1 tbsp of the butter and 1 tsp of kosher salt (or 1/2 tsp of table salt). Stir and place over medium-high heat, uncovered.
- Chop the chicken in to bite sized chunks and add to the frying pan with the remaining 3 tbsp of butter, heat over medium and cook the chicken about half way through. Add the curry powder and minced garlic, stir to cover. If adding frozen peas, add those now.
- Keep an eye on the rice during this time, and give it the occasional stir. When it reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low, stir one last time, then cover and simmer for 15 minutes (setting a timer is a good idea).
- After a few more minutes of cooking the chicken mixture, add the can of condensed soup and then a can full of milk. Stir to blend, bring to just a gentle boil and then reduce heat and simmer.
- Wrap the Naan bread, stacked, in aluminum foil. With 5 minutes left on the timer, put the bread in the oven.
- When the timer expires, turn the heat off under the rice, without opening the lid! Allow the rice to rest, covered, for another 5 minutes or so, as the chicken continues to cook and the Naan continues to heat.
- After the 5 minutes or so (referred to in the previous step), you're done! Serve the chicken over the rice with the Nann on the side. Enjoy!