Butter chicken or murgh makhani is one of the most popular Indian chicken curries all over the world. It is the dish everyone orders when in an Indian restaurant. Instant Pot Butter Chicken is a flavorful dish with chicken cooked in a mildly spiced curry sauce or gravy. This is a restaurant-style recipe where you indulge with lots of butter and cream. This butter chicken is such a breeze to make in the Instant Pot.
I have shared a Paneer Butter Masala before, which is the exact same sauce made with onion, tomato, ginger, garlic, and lots of aromatic spices. I just replaced the paneer and added chicken while cooking the sauce.
I add cashews and top with cream to thicken the gravy. Many recipes for butter chicken skip onions. However, I find that to be too tangy for my taste. Give this a try, and I am sure you will love this butter chicken. My daughter is a very picky eater but loves this sauce with chicken or paneer, so I can attest that it is kid-friendly.
There is another popular Indian Chicken Curry – Chicken Tikka Masala. For tikka masala, you marinate the chicken and grill the marinated chicken (called chicken tikka) before adding it to the gravy. Here is Salmon Tikka Masala recipe for the instant pot.
Table of Contents
Watch How to Make Instant Pot Butter Chicken
How to make Instant Pot Butter Chicken? – A different preparation
The preparation for this Butter Chicken is very different than the usual onion-tomato gravy. Usually, to make gravy, we first sauté onions and then sauté tomatoes. However, this one is done in a completely different way.
Add all the ingredients, except cream and honey, to the instant pot. Place the chicken on top of the ingredients and pressure cook for 8 minutes. You don’t need to finely chop the onions and tomatoes as we are going to blend them later.
This is also the reason I suggest adding whole spices in a pouch made from thin cheesecloth or a spice bag. This helps to get the flavor, but you can also remove it before blending.
Once the pressure cooking is done, remove the cooked chicken and cut it into pieces. Blend the cooked ingredients using an immersion blender or a regular blender. I used my immersion blender, which I could use directly in the pot.
If using a regular blender, you would have to pour the contents into the blender and may need to let them cool before blending. Then pour them back into the instant pot after blending. The sauce is now ready. Stir in the cream, honey, and chicken pieces. Garnish with lovely cilantro, and enjoy it!
Isn’t it a lovely color? And the easiest dish to prepare? This is my go-to dish when I have not done much preparation…and oh, perfect to serve if you have guests coming over. Here you can find 20 easy sides to serve with butter chicken.
Love this gravy? Make it a dip with naan and serve it as an appetizer. This used to be a complimentary appetizer served at an Indian restaurant I frequently visited in Chicago.
You can also do vegetarian Indian variations with this gravy – Paneer Butter Masala, Butter Tofu, Matar Paneer, or add Roasted Cauliflower. If you like to meal prep, make a big batch of this sauce and freeze it for later.
Check out other Instant Pot Indian Curry Recipes you might enjoy:
- Aloo Gobi
- Saag Chicken
- Chicken Chettinad
- Mom’s Chicken Curry
- Coconut Chicken Curry
- White Chicken Curry
Instant Pot Butter Chicken
Video
Ingredients
- 1.5 lb Chicken, thighs
- 2 tablespoon Butter, (replace with oil for dairy free)
- 1/2 Onion, large, cut in large pieces
- 1 tablespoon Ginger, minced
- 1 tablespoon Garlic, minced
- 4 Tomato, cut in large pieces, or 1 can of diced tomatoes
- 2 tablespoon Dried Fenugreek leaves (Kasoori Methi)
- 1/4 cup Water
- 1/4 cup Cream, heavy whipping or coconut cream
- 1 teaspoon Honey, add more to taste
- Cilantro, to garnish
Spices
- 1/2 teaspoon Ground Turmeric (Haldi powder)
- 1 teaspoon Coriander powder (Dhaniya powder)
- 1 teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder, adjust to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala
- 1 teaspoon Salt
Whole Spices (optional)
- 2″ inch Cinnamon (Dalchini), stick
- 5 Green Cardamom (Elaichi)
- 2 Black Cardamom (Moti Elaichi)
- 1/2 teaspoon Black Peppercorns
- 12 Cloves (Laung)
- 1 teaspoon Cumin seeds (Jeera)
Instructions
- Make a spice pouch by adding the whole spices to a cheesecloth. Tie it such that the spices cannot come out of it.
- Except chicken, cream, honey and cilantro, add all ingredients and spice pouch to the Instant Pot including the spices. Place chicken thighs on top of the ingredients. Close lid with vent in sealing position.
- Set the instant pot to manual or pressure cook mode for 8 minutes. After the instant pot beeps, do a 10 minute natural pressure release. This means let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes, then manually release the pressure.
- Remove the spice pouch and chicken carefully. Blend the contents in the instant pot with an immersion blender or regular blender to a smooth paste. If using regular blender, you may need to cool the ingredients before blending. Get the contents back to the instant pot.
- Add the cream and honey. Stir into the sauce.
- Cut chicken to smaller pieces and add back to the sauce. Stir them into the sauce.
- Butter Chicken is ready to be served. Garnish with cilantro.
Notes
- The sauce thickens as it cools, and taste even better the next day. If you want a more reddish color sauce, you can reduce tomatoes and add some tomato paste.
- This sauce freezes well. Skip adding the chicken and keep this sauce handy to prepare this or other curries.
- Variations: Butter Paneer / Matar Paneer / Mushroom Matar / Roasted Cauliflower – You can also add different veggies to this sauce and make delicious curries. All of the veggies can be added after making the sauce. Simmer for 3-4 minutes on saute mode to cook the veggies.
- Love this gravy? Make it a dip with naan and serve it as an appetizer.
- Vegan Variation: To make this curry vegan, replace cream with coconut cream, butter with oil and chicken with tofu or vegetables (add them after making the sauce).
- Make it a meal: Cook white basmati rice pot-in-pot (PIP) when pressure cooking the curry. Check measurements here.
- This recipe has been updated to make it even easier to make in the Pressure Cooker.
How to make this on stove-top. Please include instructions for stove-top recipe
Hi! Here at home we all love this recipe (and many others from your website), but I noticed you took the cashews off the recipe, is there a reason for it?
Thank you very much for the wonderful content.
w/ love
Hi Maria – I’m so glad to hear your family loves the recipe—thank you for the kind words! I did remove the cashews as they are not added to the typical recipe for butter chicken, but please don’t hesitate to add them in along with the other ingredients before pressure cooking.
Recipe looks amazing. Please add stovetop recipe for all of your butter masala recipes.
Honey seems like a very interesting take on butter chicken. If you add stovetop instructions I will be able to give reviews on this
Hi Nabeel – Thank you. If you have a stovetop pressure cooker, you can cook these recipes in it. Three minutes of pressure cooking in the Instant Pot typically translates to 1 whistle on the stovetop pressure cooker. I hope that helps!
I just have a nonstick pan and pot
This recipe is amazing and easy to prepare once you have the ingredients. I make a big batch and freeze the leftovers for easy mid-week meals. I’m allergic to dairy so use the coconut cream option. I’ve served it to friends and they loved it too. Can’t thank you enough.
Hi Elaine – That sounds wonderful! I’m so glad you enjoyed it.
Meeta, you never let me down!! For reference, I’m a decently experienced home cook, have traveled in India, and adore Indian food. I send so many people your way when I find they love Indian food. I made this tonight and my standard-American-diet 9-year-old ate 5 servings.
The way you write recipes is so clear and helpful. I’ve not once made a recipe of yours I didn’t love. Thanks for all you do!
For adjustments-
-I only had one tomato, so additionally used 1/2 can of tomato paste and some extra water. Omitted the honey, since tomato paste is so sweet.
-used a can of coconut milk in place of cream since I’m avoiding dairy
Hi Emily – I am so happy that you are enjoying the recipes. Thanks so much for sharing back your experience and the adjustments you made. I very much appreciate you sharing about the blog with Indian food lovers.
Love this recipe! I doubled the recipe the second time because my husband ate it all and we had no leftovers! However, it seemed spicier than the first try. Should I reduce the cloves and peppercorns? I also think my instantpot contributed to the time cooked because it never pressurized and I had to restart it because the chicken wasn’t done.
Hi Jessica – You can surely reduce the whole spices when you double the recipe. The pressure cooking time should remain the same even if you double the recipe. I am guessing there was some issue with the instant pot coming to pressure due to which the chicken did not cook. Glad you liked the recipe and are keen to make it again 🙂
Hi,
Can this be frozen.
Thanks in advance.
Mark
Hi Mark – Yes, this butter chicken should freeze well. I would let it cool down and then store in freezer safe containers for up to 2 months.