This Shortcut Butter Chicken Is One of My All-Time Favorite Easy Dinners

One of my favorite things about Indian food is how the slow-cooked sauces are full of fragrant and warm spices and are as much a star of the show as the protein or vegetables they’re cooked with. Although I’d like to spend a few hours cooking, a slow-cooked dish is not doable when I’m short on time to get dinner ready. This recipe for butter chicken, however, comes together in less than half an hour and still delivers big on flavor and deliciousness. Tender bites of boneless chicken are suspended in a buttery spiced tomato sauce — a perfect match with fluffy basmati rice or warm naan. A few shortcuts make this doable even on a weekday, and leftovers make for a great lunch or future meal to stash in the freezer. 

This recipe does a few smart things to cut down on prep, ingredients, and cook time. The first is to use just one spice blend, garam masala, plus two other spices rather than a longer list of spices. If you like spicy heat, cayenne pepper is also a welcome addition. Boneless chicken is cut into one-inch pieces so they cook quickly and evenly. Instead of marinating the chicken in yogurt for hours, the chicken is coated in some of the spice rub to quickly jump-start the flavors instead. Finally, tomato paste and tomato sauce are used for the base of the sauce. Since they are already cooked down and smooth, there’s no need to blend the sauce until smooth like you would one made from chunky tomato pieces.