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.
Crock Pot Butter Chicken
- 2 pounds chicken breast, cubed
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 2 ½ teaspoons garam masala
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1 – 6 ounce can tomato paste
- 1 – 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
- 1 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
- Brown rice for serving
- Combine chicken through tomatoes in a crock (4 quart is a good size).
- Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours. Shred if desired.
- Stir in sour cream/Greek yogurt.
- Serve over rice.
Yield: 6-8 servings
Thank you, instant family hit, I put 0 Greek yoghurt and had Caulie rice for myself, family had it with sour cream, and rice, ( taking them slowly to brown rice) thanks again
I’m so glad to hear that!
Woe is me…..my garam masala jar was empty. (AND….I just cannot bring myself to throw away those little glass Spice Island spice jars with the pretty label.) But you came through & there was the link for making my own. I didn’t have ground coriander but I did have whole coriander….and a mortar & pestle. A few minutes later I had lovely fresh smelling SALT-FREE garam masala! (The first ingredient on the jar label was salt—shame on them!) Butter chicken in the crock & thinking supper will be such a loooong wait. Thanks for the recipe. Now, time to make some Naan, I may have just enough Greek yogurt in the fridge to make it to go with the chicken.
Congratulations!
Your recipe is featured on Full Plate Thursday this week! Hope you are having a great weekend and enjoy your new Red Plate!
Miz Helen
WOOT! WOOT!
Ohhhh yum! 🙂 Thanks for sharing on Foodie Fridays!
Thank you for hosting it!
Hi Stacy,
do you think this will work with whole bone in chicken breasts?
Sure! Although, I would remove the chicken to shred and take all the bones out. 🙂 But that’s probably a “duh” comment. Ha!
Thank you Stacy, my butter chx was good, probably BETTER with sour cream and the onions! I did use the chx that I had just got in my brand new meat CSA which I picked up on Saturday. I weighed the bag they gave me and it was almost 16 lbs. So I paid $160 for $16 lbs of organic grass fed beef, lamb, chicken and pork. Below is what we got, I had to paste in from Excel, not sure if you can see, but the columns are all wonky the way I can see, but there should be a column for pounds, ounces and the meat. So we decided that having the CSA was not affordable for us because it had cuts of meat that where way out of our budget, so I emailed the farmer, explained and he said, ok, no prob – you are out. So it was a good learning experience for us and God blessed us! As we were driving home from the farm, which was over 40 miles from our house, I know I know, crazy! We passed another farm. I wrote down the phone number and called this new farmer. We talked on the phone this week and he was so nice to answer all my crazy questions. So he is our new farmer and we can buy any cuts of meat we like from him. Thank you LORD for blessing us. And thank you Stacy for ALL YOU DO!!!
pounds
ounces
meat
15.6
Nitrate/Nitrite Free Bacon
1
9.3
Split Chicken Breasts
1
1.6
Ground Beef
1
0.3
Andouille Sausage
15.9
Italian Sausage
1
0.9
Beef Kabobs
14.9
Beef Kabobs
1
0.9
Ground Lamb
1
1.1
Beef Hot Dogs
1
11
Pork Chops
13.9
Filet Mignon
3
6.9
Boneless Lamb Shoulder Roast
Fantastic!
Please stop. I seriously cannot keep up with all of the awesome recipes you share! But this one is jumping to the top of the list.
I can’t stop – it’s a disease. I’m sorry.
So glad to find this recipe – pinning! I loved reading your blog – funny. Hilarious – I like it! 🙂 Julia
🙂 Thank you.
Sounds like your health subsitutes didn’t subsitute flavor. Thanks for sharing your chicken with us on foodie friday.
Sure don’t – who wants to sub flavor? Not me!
Looks and sounds absolutely delicious! I’ll definitely be making this. Believe it or not, I have garam masala on-hand. 🙂
Yay!!! I will surely keep it now!
I love butter chicken and am glad you were able to eliminate the butter and save it to be enjoyed elsewhere! I’m all for enjoying butter where you can really enjoy and notice it.
Yeah, like on the toast I’m fixing to eat. 🙂
Too spicy is when you can’t breathe. LOL
I love buying my spices at Asian stores. SOOO much cheaper!
You’re RIGHT!
This looks alot like Tikka Masala, which I LOVE! I’ll be making this very soon!
I love Tikka Masala too – so you’ll definitely like this one!
Oh, another suggestion in terms of Indian food – paneer. It is a fresh, pressed cheese that would be delightful in place of chicken in this recipe for vegetarians.
That sounds awesome!
Stacy – Indian food stores are indeed fun. You should try their clothes stores some time! They have very, um, I hesitate to say cheap, but inexpensive tunic topics and mumu’s. If you do a lot of sewing, they also have great deals and a variety of fabrics to choose from. As someone of Indian heritage, I bought an Indian outfit for my wedding reception, and I like it better than my wedding dress 🙂
🙂 I have never seen one – I’ll keep my eyes peeled when traveling.
I made this last night – looked just like yours. I missed the note at the bottom about tweaking it to make it THM friendly. It was a cross-over, oh well. I made it just like the recipe, but didn’t measure the pepper – I just added pepper like I normally would. It wasn’t spicy at all with just the garam marsala. Everyone liked it except my 13-yr old son who detected the tomato flavor and refused to eat another bite. I’ll try it with yogurt next time to keep it an E.
Crossovers are okay sometimes! 🙂
Ha ha, yes, but I just re-started. 😀
🙂 Crossover = better than CHEAT.
I’ve got this in the crock pot now! I don’t have any tomato paste. Do you think it will be ok?
It helps with the thickness and flavor – so it won’t be exactly the same…you might have to add a thickener.
Stacy, for those who might be getting scared by the Garam Masala they can make their own mix. Allrecipes.com has a quick blend of most spices people do have at home except for maybe the cardamom. I bet this would be awesome even without it.
Ladies – I bet this would be awesome even if you are missing a spice or 2. Don’t let a strange ingredient throw you off. Give it a go anyway!
BTW – I need an E meal tonight….but I’ve done chicken the last 3 nights. UGH! Going on the list for right AFTER another meat meal. lol
Yep! It’s easy…I linked a homemade recipe twice in the post. 🙂
Question for ya….if I don’t want my nose to run and tongue to burn, can I just reduce the amount of spice? I actually have some Garam Masala (I got it for cheap at World Market) but have never used it. We don’t like spicy-hot at my house. Thanks so much!
Sure! Go very easy on it…cut back on the pepper too. 🙂
Sounds good Stacy !!
Thank ya!
Kefir cheese makes a good sub for sour cream, too. We make our kefir cheese as thick as cream cheese, so we add a little kefir to make it the right consistency. Sooo good.
We looooooooooooove kefir cheese. 🙂
Heya! question about the garam masala… I actually have a jar I got a while ago (on sale lol), so am wondering is the quantity the same as your Indian-store pouched one? Also, bear with me, not an experienced cook… when you say chicken do you mean raw or pre-cooked? ps: I love how the tomatoes disappear and become rosee… my daughter HATES tomatoes but I can trick her when it’s a rosee sauce 😀 Thanks!
I’d say it’s very close.
If I say “chicken” I mean raw chicken. If it’s cooked I always say “cooked, diced chicken.” 🙂
Stacy, I just found your blog. After reading this recipe, I’m a fan! Couldn’t agree more – if your nose ain’t runnin’, it ain’t hot enough! Thanks for a great recipe – I’ll be trying it out this weekend!
I hope you love it as much as we do! 🙂
I should know this by now but I forget…Don’t do oil pulling (http://www.everythingessential.me/ApplyingOils/OilPulling.html) while reading your posts as you Always make me laugh. A computer screen does not need to be oiled to keep the squeaks out…#sprayingthecoconutoilnotpulling
HA, ha!!!!!
Everybody loved dinner tonight. Although, given the Swedish tongues in the household, I used more curry powder and less garam masala. So delicious! Thanks for making me laugh/spit coconut oil and fill our bellies. Blessings!
Hooray!!!!
Dinner tonight! Thank you lady 🙂 Also, LOVE that you linked us to making the spicy mixture ourselves… that’s my style 😉
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, I hope you love it! Been missin’ your THT recipes chick.
Hey there, Stacy! Wondering if you think this would work with crushed tomatoes instead of diced. My hubby is stubborn, and while he’ll eat ketchup, tomato sauce, pizza sauce, etc., if the tomatoes are in chunks AT ALL, he will pick them out. I can’t even keep chunky salsa in the house – has to be pureed picante! But I digress…This sounds fabulous, and if you think it would work with crushed tomatoes, I’m on it!
Sure! 🙂
My 3 year old loves sour cream too…will eat it by the spoonful. Glad to know she is in good company 🙂
It’s weird – but at least it’s not chocolate chips. LOL