Use the instant pot for a quick and easy version of the Indian dish Butter Chicken. You can have delicious dinner on the table in one hour.
Jump to RecipeI’ve never been one to eat much traditional Indian food. Usually, it’s spicy and spicy foods don’t agree with me. But, when I heard about butter chicken, I wanted to give it a try. I love cream sauce. And butter chicken is covered in a tomato and cream sauce.
Oh, and of course, there’s butter. Lots of butter. I’m a Southern girl, I like a lot of butter!
Traditionally, the chicken is marinated for hours in the spices. It’s also usually cooked in a clay oven. But I don’t have one of those.
But I do have an instant pot pressure cooker! And I’ve been learning to use it more and more lately. I like that it’s versatile, so I can melt the butter and prepare the sauce on a saute setting. Then set it to pressure cook to finish the meal quickly.
The only reason I had to use a second kitchen gadget was to cook the rice. It’s not necessary, but the sauce was delicious with the rice, so I highly recommend it! I used my rice steamer to cook the rice while the instant pot cooked the chicken.
Step by Step
Gather the ingredients for your butter chicken.
Set the instant pot to the saute setting and melt 6tbsp of butter. Add the chicken and cook for about 3-4 minutes on each side. The chicken will start to brown but won’t be cooked in the middle.
Add the ginger, curry powder, garlic, cumin, salt, turmeric, cayenne, tomatoes, and onion to the instant pot.
Close the lid and cook on high pressure for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, start the rice if you are using a rice steamer.
Let the instant pot stand for 15 minutes after cooking to slowly release the pressure. After 15 minutes, manually release any remaining pressure. Open the lid and stir in the cream and remaining 3 tbsp of butter.
Remove the chicken from the pan and set the instant pot to saute to bring the sauce to a boil. Stir occasionally while boiling for 5-7 minutes to thicken the sauce.
Serve the butter chicken over the cooked rice smothered with the tomato cream sauce.
Leftovers
I kept the cooked rice and chicken separate from the sauce in a divided container. This way the sauce didn’t saturate the rice when it was in the refrigerator. To reheat, I placed everything in the microwave until it was warm. This took about a minute. You could also mix it all in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring often.
Recipe
Originally Published On: September 11, 2020
Butter Chicken in the Instant Pot
Ingredients
- 9 tbsp salted butter
- 2 lb chicken breast (boneless, skinless)
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 1 tbsp curry powder
- 3 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 14.5 oz diced tomatoes (undrained)
- 1/2 yellow onion (chopped)
- 2 cups white rice
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Set the instant pot to the saute setting and melt 6tbsp of butter
- Add the chicken and cook for about 3-4 minutes on each side
- Add the ginger, curry powder, garlic, cumin, salt, turmeric, cayenne, tomatoes, and onion to the instant pot
- Close the lid and cook on high pressure for 10 minutes
- Meanwhile, start the rice if you are using a rice steamer
- Let the instant pot stand for 15 minutes after cooking to slowly release the pressure
- After 15 minutes, manually release any remaining pressure
- Open the lid and stir in the cream and the remaining 3 tbsp of butter
- Remove the chicken from the pan and set the instant pot to saute to bring the sauce to a boil
- Stir occasionally while boiling for 5-7 minutes to thicken the sauce
- Serve the butter chicken over the cooked rice smothered with the tomato cream sauce
All nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutrition content will vary based on brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes, and more.
This sounds delicious! We love Indian cuisine in our house so I’m sure this would go down a treat…
This was one of the first Indian cuisines I had tried to make at home. I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious it was!
Yep adding this to our instant pot list! With fall coming and school starting today I need easy dinners!
I hope you enjoy this one, then! It was easy and so yummy.
I’m an Indian and I have all the knowledge about Indian spices and this is how exactly butter chicken is made but I’m surprise that you made this so quickly. Like wow!! If it would be me, it would have taken more than an hour atleast.
Oh, I love hearing that it’s so close to the original! It’s so hard to know sometimes. The instant pot makes so many things quicker!
We love butter chicken! We actually asked one of our Indian friends to teach us how to make it but we were intimidated by the very long cook time and her recipe had TONS of cream. Awesome that you can use the instant pot for yours and only have half a cup of cream. Definitely trying, perfect for this cooler weather.
This may not be exactly authentic, but it gets so close and is much easier! I hope you enjoy it as much as the traditional Indian dish 🙂
I bet this dish makes your kitchen smell amazing! My cousin’s wife cooks Indian food and I’m obsessed.
This looks really yummy and easy to make, I am going to try to make curry with this!
It was surprisingly easy! I hope you enjoy it 🙂
I love spicy food, but my stomach doesn’t always agree with me
Wow! This looks delicious. I am getting a new instant pot and I would love to have this as the first dish I am going to prepare. Bookmarking this for reference. Thank you for sharing the recipe.
it sounds so easy! I always wondered how they make butter chicken and sauce like that. never thought you simply need to remove the chicken. will be making it next week
Oooh this is definitely going on next week’s dinner menu!
Looks very delicious. I bought an instant pot a few years ago and never used, I will try this recipe in it.
Butter Chicken is my absolute favorite! I never cooked it at home, I will try to make your recipe.
The Dish looks amazing. However as a native Indian, I don’t know where this word “Curry” came from. There is no such thing as curry/curry powder in Indian cuisine. Every dish has a separate base which is unique blend of different spices, tomatoes and onion. In butter chicken too, we don’t use any curry powder.
One more suggestion will be try White butter, that is made from fat from milk by hand/mixer. You are gonna thank me later. Since your passion is cooking, you will enjoy its authentic taste, though it will increase your prep time.