Crock Pot Butter Chicken

Soooooooooooooooo, yeah. My Butter Chicken recipe doesn’t call for any butter. I know, I know. I think I might have just created a culinary sin.

I really, really love my butter. I love it with fried eggs, I love it on bread, I love it on broccoli…I love it on my finger. HOLLA!

But when I decide to cook something in the crock pot, it almost always eliminates the need to use butter (unless I’m baking a cake or something).

And why would I unnecessarily “waste” my butter for something in the crock when I could keep it for eggs or some other deliciousness?

So, I did some looking around online to make sure I wouldn’t be excommunicated from the food community and I discovered that a lot of recipes for butter chicken just don’t call for butter.

Big relief. My bread is saved! Hallelujah!

Well then why on earth do they call it butter chicken? Because when you’re done cooking, the chicken is smooth and tender – like butter.

And the addition of sour cream makes the dish creamy and fantastically delicious…just like butter. See – butter doesn’t always mean BUTTER. No means no, though, you know?

This dish calls for Garam Masala. It’s an Indian spice used in a lot of curry recipes. I’ve avoided it for the most part – usually substituting something else when it’s called for.

But then I went to The Big City (aka, Knoxville, TN) and I found an Indian store – I stocked up on a few things, one of them being Garam Masala – Indian stores are fun…check one out!

If you purchase Garam Masala at the grocery store, it ain’t cheap. It’s something like $8+ for a little bottle. Ain’t nobody got the budget for that.

But, see what I paid at the Indian store?! $1.09!!! Hip, hip, hooray!

If you don’t have an Indian store, are afraid of the smell of fish or strong spices, or you’re afraid to go into yours because you are afraid they wouldn’t understand your country-hick dialect (they just smiled at me when I talked), you can easily make your own Garam Masala for this dish. 🙂

The star players of this dish are tomatoes and sour cream. Well, chicken too – otherwise it would just be called Butter…which isn’t a bad thing, as I’ve already clearly established. But, I don’t think my family would be cool with a plate of butter for dinner – Lame.

You’ll cook low and slow for about 6-7 hours…to achieve the tender butter feel for your chicken.

When mine was done, I shredded it…most people don’t. But if you haven’t picked up on this yet, I’m not most people. I just used two forks to shred it straight in the crock when it was done…I didn’t do it fine, and left a few chunks.

You can just leave your chicken chunks if you like…but don’t say chicken chunks – it sounds kinda gross.

When all is done, stir in your sour cream. I loooooooooooooooove sour cream. So does Annie.

I can get that girl to eat anything if I let her dip it in sour cream. She would sit down with a tub and a spoon and be perfectly happy if I would let her. Maybe I should – then I could have the butter all to myself.

You could use Greek yogurt in place of sour cream for this recipe – the dairy is going to help cut the heat a little bit…and this is a pretty spicy recipe.

My nose was running when dinner was over – PERFECT! That’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it, uh huh, uh huh. If your nose ain’t running, it ain’t hot enough.

I like this served over brown rice. It’s also good served over quinoa.

To give your meal a little special somethin’-somethin’, try stirring some chopped cilantro into your rice. It takes it to a whole new level. I love cilantro! I buy some every visit to the Farmer’s Market. And yes, I know I could grow my own…but that would require skills – Black Thumb of Death, remember?

Make this soon. Your tongue will thank you – keep a hanky handy.