Butter Chicken: This creamy, spiced, and absolutely delicious butter chicken is the perfect low carb meal. Serve it over cauliflower rice for a complete meal that is flavorful and filling.
Butter chicken is a creamy and rich chicken dish flavored with Indian spices, and cooked with some tomatoes, and cream. It is rich, vibrant in flavor, and seriously so delicious. It is one of our top family favorite meals, and while we have been making Indian Butter Chicken for ages, I wanted to make a low carb or keto-friendly version.
In early 2018 I got the chance to visit India, you can read a little about it our visit to Delhi here. Anyway, we spent about 10 days exploring India, starting in Delhi, and going to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and Jaipur for the Holi festival. It was an amazing experience, and one of the things I loved was being able to try so many versions of my favorite: Butter Chicken!
Food in India is so full of flavor. So many spices. So much color. And Butter Chicken is one of my top faves. Probably because I like anything with cream. Mmmm. Anyway, after trying tons of different versions, and after testing and testing, I have come up with what I think is a killer recipe for a low-carb butter chicken. It isn’t lacking in flavor or ease. Just carbs!
More Keto/Low carb Recipes
- Low Calorie Sheet Pan Dinner: Shrimp & Asparagus
- Beef Stuffed Zucchini Boats (Low Carb)
- Low Carb Steak Fajita Roll-Ups
- Keto Diet Snacks
- Salmon Avocado Salad & (Keto)
How do you make butter chicken?
Butter Chicken or Indian Butter Chicken is relatively easy to make. The key to making it low carb is to get sweetness from something other than carbohydrate full sugars. So, instead of adding a sweetener or a sugar substitute, I decided to add onions, and let them cook and caramelize so the natural sweetness and sugars get a chance to really shine.
The next thing is making sure you aren’t adding carbs by serving it over rice. So instead, we serve it with cauliflower rice, or as is.
Steps to making Butter Chicken:
Step one: Prep your ingredients.
In this recipe I love using chicken thighs. They are a low cost cut of meat, with tons of flavor. They are hard to ruin or over cook, and have natural fat, which makes them perfect for a veto-friendly diet.
Once you have your chicken chopped up, and your spices ready to go you make a marinade, which is creamy and flavorful. And give your chicken a chance to hang out in it and soak in all the goodness. A good butter chicken is going to have flavor bursts with every bite, which means giving your chicken thighs some time to marinate is key.
Your chicken should have been hanging out in its spice bath for the last two hours or so, and now it is time to give it a quick sear. So you are going to pop it into the pan with the onions, and cook for a few minutes. The marinade is going in with it, so don’t stress out when you can’t get a great sear. The sour cream will do that.
But you want to get the cooking process started.
Step Four: Add Garlic, Ginger, and Tomatoes
We already have this totally amazing flavorful chicken going, but now it is time to start building on the sauce, and adding some more layers or flavor and dimension to the sauce. To do this you are going to add garlic and ginger! The best combo ever. And tomatoes.
Then you let it simmer and just soak in and layer up all the flavor. You guys, my mouth is watering just typing this because I can smell this dish in my memory and I know how stinking tasty it is, and I am so excited for you guys to try it!
When it is done simmering for about 20 minutes, that is when you are going to move to the next step.
Step five: Add cream to your butter chicken
The very last step besides garnishing the dish is adding in the heavy whipping cream. I love how creamy and fantastic it makes it, and I love the extra flavor and smoothness this adds. You do not want to add it while you are still simmering and cooking or the cream will separate and you will get a lumpy butter chicken. Not what you want.
Slowly add it and stir it in, and then make sure you heat through, but then remove from the heat.
Step six: Garnish and Enjoy!
Once you have everything stirred up, give it a quick taste, and if you want salt or pepper add some. Then garnish with cilantro (if you like it, I love it but I know not everyone does), and enjoy.
I like to serve it over cauliflower rice, but it could be over cabbage noodles, zucchini noodles, or just eat it on its own. Yum!
How do you make Indian butter chicken sauce?
How do you make premade sauce for butter chicken?
More Delicious Recipes
Low Carb (Keto) Indian Butter Chicken
Ingredients
Chicken:
- 1 ½ lbs chicken thighs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, chunked into one inch pieces
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 2 tsp Garam Masala
- ½ tsp chili powder
- ¼ tsp fenugreek
- 1 tsp ground cumin
Sauce:
- 1 Tbs olive oil
- 1 yellow onion medium
- 1/2 Tbs ginger paste or 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp garlic minced
- 1 cup tomatoes pureed
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup heavy cream
Garnish (optional):
- Fresh cilantro leaves
Instructions
- In a gallon sized zip top bag, add all ingredients for chicken Squeeze the bag to mix it all together and coat the chicken. Refrigerate for 2 hours minimum.
- Heat 1 Tbs olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, and add onions to the skillet, cook until softened and starting to caramelize, about 20 minutes.
- Then add the chicken (with the marinade) to the same skillet, and cook 3-4 minutes.
- Stir in the garlic, ginger, and pureed tomatoes.
- Turn temperature to low, put lid on, let simmer 20-25 minutes until chicken is cooked through and sauce is reduced and thicker.
- Stir the heavy whipping cream into the sauce.
- Serve garnished with fresh cilantro, if desired.
Notes
Nutrition
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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