Instant Pot Butter Chicken

When a craving for your favorite Indian food strikes, nothing else will do. Samosas, chicken tikka masala, aloo gobi, chicken biryani… the variety of options is unparalleled, and it’s hard to decide what we love the most! One thing we always get when we go out for Indian food is butter chicken. It’s creamy, rich, spicy-sweet, and lucky for you, pretty fast and easy to make at home, especially when you utilize your Instant Pot. Though nothing beats the delivery from your local Indian spot, this recipe might just rival it for convenience.

Unlike cooking in a pot over the stove, where you’ve got more room to edit as you go, you’ve got to be more particular with what goes in your Instant Pot before you pressurize it. Based on testing, we’ve included some tips to make your butter chicken the best it can be:

Garam masala is a spice blend, so certain brands can vary in heat and strength. Though our video above doesn’t reflect this, we added some sugar to our ingredient list because we’ve found that it can help temper that. If you’re sensitive to spice, feel free to halve the amount of garam masala too. We also added some water to the pot with the chicken to help avoid the "Burn Notice" on your Instant Pot—we went with 1/2 cup, but go up to 3/4 cup if you know or worry that your particular appliance is sensitive.

Some parts of India use coconut milk or cashews to give this dish its distinctive creamy flavor—we chose to go with heavy cream, but feel free to experiment if you like. Where we think you shouldn’t stray is what you serve it with. Rice is a MUST (and we’re pretty partial to some naan for dipping too!).

Made this? Let us know how it went in the comments below.