Mango Butter Chicken (Murg Makhani)

Mango butter chicken (murg makhani) is the classic creamy, buttery curry with mango chutney stirred into the sauce at the end. It brings a gentle fruity sweetness that sits against the spice rather than sugaring it, and it is the one thing that separates this from a standard butter chicken.

My version takes its cue from the famous Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi, where butter chicken is said to have started. You make the makhani masala yourself from five spices rather than opening a jar, and the chicken sits in a yoghurt marinade before it is browned in batches, which is what keeps it tender once it goes into the sauce.

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Mango Chicken or Mango Butter Chicken? What the Names Actually Mean

Both names turn up on the same takeaway menus and people use them loosely, so it is worth being clear about what is what before you cook. They are not the same dish, and if you order one expecting the other you will be surprised.

• Butter chicken, or murgh makhani A specific dish with a fixed identity. Chicken marinated in yoghurt and spices, cooked hot, then finished in a sauce of tomato, butter and cream, with dried fenugreek leaves at the end. It came out of Delhi in the middle of the last century and the tomato and butter base is the whole point of it.
• Mango chicken Not one dish so much as a category. On most British and American Indian menus it means a mild, sweet curry built around mango pulp or chutney, and the base underneath is usually closer to a korma or pasanda, leaning on cream, ground nuts or coconut rather than tomato. There is no fixed recipe, so it varies from one kitchen to the next.
• Mango tikka masala Tikka masala is butter chicken’s louder cousin: the same marinated, charred chicken, but a sauce with more spice, more tomato and less butter behind it. Add mango and you get something sharper and less rich than what follows here.

Mine is firmly the first of the three. A proper makhani base, tomato and butter and cream, with mango folded through it rather than a sweet mango sauce with chicken sitting in it. That order matters: it tastes of curry first and mango second, and the fruit rounds the tomato off rather than taking the dish over.

If the sweeter restaurant style is what you were after, the recipe bends that way easily enough. Push the mango chutney up, pull the tomato back, and swap some of the cream for coconut milk. You end up much closer to the mango chicken on a takeaway menu, and rather further from murgh makhani.

Equipment You’ll Need

Nothing exotic, but one of these decides how the sauce turns out.

Ingredient Substitutions

• Chicken breast thighs are the more forgiving swap and stay juicier through the browning. Use the same weight, and give them a few minutes longer in the sauce. For a vegetarian version, paneer or chickpeas go into the finished sauce rather than being browned first.
• Mango chutney a whole ripe mango, blitzed in with the sauce, is the fresher route and the recipe allows for it. Tinned mango pulp works too, though it is usually sweeter, so start with less and taste. Frozen mango chunks are fine once blended.
• Double cream coconut cream gives a dairy-free sauce that suits the mango unusually well. Full-fat Greek yoghurt works if you take the pan off the heat and stir it in at the end, or it will split. Evaporated milk is the cheap British cheat and it does the job.
• Kashmiri chilli powder this is what gives butter chicken its colour without much heat. Sweet paprika plus a pinch of cayenne is the closest substitute. Ordinary chilli powder is much hotter, so use a third of the amount.
• Kasuri methi dried fenugreek leaves, and if you can find them they are the one addition that makes a home butter chicken taste like a restaurant one. Crush a teaspoon between your palms and stir it in at the very end. There is no real substitute, but the curry is very good without it.
• Butter ghee is the traditional choice and has a higher smoke point, so it browns the chicken better. The recipe already treats them as interchangeable.

How to Make Mango Butter Chicken, Step by Step

Full quantities are in the recipe card below. This is the walkthrough, and with butter chicken the order of the last step is what separates a silky sauce from a grainy one.

1. Marinate the chicken. Diced chicken into the spices, yoghurt, garlic, ginger, fresh coriander, lemon juice and salt. Overnight in the fridge is best, or at least an hour if you are cooking today. Breast or thigh both work.The yoghurt does more than flavour: it helps the chicken take a proper crust in the hot pan. Thighs want a little longer in the sauce and give you more flavour for it.
2. Brown the chicken in batches, then take it out. Non-stick pan, oil or ghee, high heat. Cook the chicken in batches, not all at once. Set it aside once browned. You want colour here, not cooked through.A crowded pan drops in temperature and the meat steams instead of browning. It finishes cooking in the sauce later. Chicken carrying extra water from processing steams even sooner, which is what my piece on air-chilled chicken is about.
3. Onions, then the spices. Same pan, heat down to medium, melt the butter, and sweat the diced onions with a teaspoon of salt until translucent. Give them their full time. Then add the garlic, the rest of the spices and any marinade left in the bowl, and cook for a couple of minutes until fragrant.Rushed onions are the commonest reason a butter chicken tastes sharp instead of round. The leftover marinade is seasoned yoghurt, so it belongs in the sauce.On the spices: if you can, grind your own whole spices with an inexpensive electric grinder. It makes a bigger difference here than any single ingredient.
4. Tomatoes, cream, chutney, then blend, and only then the chicken. Add the chopped tomatoes, then the cream and the mango chutney, and blend the sauce smooth with a stick blender before the chicken goes back in. Then return the chicken, bring it to a simmer and give it ten minutes. Taste before you serve. If it tastes sharp, add salt first, and only then a teaspoon of sugar or an extra spoon of chutney. If the sauce is looser than you want, let it bubble uncovered for a few minutes.That order is the whole trick: blend after the chicken goes in and you shred the meat you just browned. A sharp sauce usually wants salt, not sugar.Using fresh mango instead of chutney? chop it small and add it once the onions are fully cooked. Chutney goes in later, just before you blend.
5. Serve. Scatter over plenty of freshly chopped coriander at the last moment, not cooked. Serve it with cucumber raita, warm naan and basmati rice.Fresh coriander stays green and bright against the richness.

Recipe Card for Indian Butter Chicken with Mango

Recipe Card

Mango Butter Chicken (Murg Makhani)

Butter chicken built on a makhani masala you blend yourself, with mango chutney stirred through the sauce. The chicken is browned in batches first, so it holds its texture in the cream.

★★★★☆ 4.4 from 7 votes · Rate this recipe

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Prep

35 min

Cook

45 min

Marination time (optional)

1 hr

Total

2 hrs 20 min

Serves

6

Per serving

529 kcal

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6 servings

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Equipment I Use

Hybrid Non Stick Frying PanStick Blender

Ingredients

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Butter Chicken Spice Blend (Makhani Masala)

3½ tsp Garam Masala 2½ tsp Ground Turmeric 3½ tsp Ground Cumin 2½ tsp Ground Coriander 3½ tsp Ground Kashmiri Chilli Powder

For the Marinade

1 kg Chicken Breasts, cut into large dice 2 tbsp Yoghurt 2 tbsp Minced Garlic 1 tsp Minced Ginger 3 tbsp Butter Chicken Masala 1 Lemon, juice only 1 handful Fresh Coriander 1 tsp Salt

For the Butter Sauce

2 tbsp Oil or ghee, for browning the chicken 5 tbsp Butter, You can use ghee instead 800 g Chopped Tomatoes 2 Onions, medium size, fine dice 2 tbsp Minced Garlic 2 tbsp Butter Chicken Masala Salt to taste 4 tbsp Mango Chutney, You can use 1 fresh ripe mango instead. 240 ml Double Cream

Instructions

Tap a step to tick it off as you cook.

1

Marinating the Chicken

Marinate the diced chicken in a mix of spices, yoghurt, garlic, ginger, fresh coriander, lemon juice and salt. Cover it and leave it in the fridge, overnight if you can and at least an hour if you cannot. The yoghurt does the tenderising, so the longer marinade is a real difference rather than a nicety.

2

Cooking the Chicken

In a non-stick frying pan, heat the 2 tbsp of oil or ghee over a high heat. Pan-fry the chicken pieces in batches to avoid overcrowding, until nicely browned. Keep the browned chicken aside.

3

Preparing the Base

In the same pan, reduce to medium heat and melt the butter. Sweat the diced onions with a teaspoon of salt until translucent. Then add the minced garlic, the rest of the masala and any leftover marinade, cooking until fragrant for around 2 minutes.

4

Making the Sauce

Add the chopped tomatoes to the pan, followed by double cream and mango chutney. Blend the sauce using an immersion blender for a smooth consistency. Add the cooked chicken and bring the mixture to a simmer. Let it cook for 10 minutes, seasoning with more salt as needed.

5

Final Touch

Scatter over freshly chopped coriander and serve with cucumber raita, naan and basmati rice.

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Chef’s notes＋

• Marinate ahead: overnight in the fridge is noticeably better than an hour, and the yoghurt does the tenderising.
• Brown in batches: a crowded pan steams the chicken instead of colouring it, and that colour is most of the flavour in the finished sauce.
• Blend before the chicken goes back: the sauce is meant to be smooth, and blending it with the chicken in shreds the meat.
• Mango chutney: brands vary a lot in sweetness. Add half, taste, then decide.

Nutrition per serving＋

529 kcalProtein 41.8 gCarbs 25.2 gFat 29.6 gSat fat 16.4 gFibre 5.2 gSugar 13.4 gSodium 754 mgServing 374 g

Mango Butter Chicken (Murg Makhani) · https://chefsbinge.com/mango-butter-chicken-murg-makhani/

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More Ways to Make It

• Vegetarian, with paneer or chickpeas make the sauce exactly as written and fold in cubed paneer, a tin of chickpeas, or roasted cauliflower at the end. The mango and cream sauce carries all of them well.
• Restaurant finish with kasuri methi a teaspoon of dried fenugreek leaves crushed between your palms and stirred in off the heat. It is the single biggest step towards a takeaway flavour.
• Dial the heat up or down the Kashmiri chilli is mostly there for colour, so this is a mild curry as written. For heat, add a slit green chilli with the onions or a pinch of cayenne. For milder still, cut the Kashmiri chilli by half and add a little more cream.
• Tandoori-style chicken the traditional murgh makhani grills the marinated chicken over fierce heat before it meets the sauce. Thread the marinated pieces onto skewers and give them a few minutes under a very hot grill until they char at the edges, then carry on with the recipe. The smoky edge is worth the extra step. For tandoori chicken as a dish of its own, my tandoori chicken is roasted on the bone and served with a vegetable pulao.
• Dairy-free coconut cream in place of the double cream and oil in place of the butter. With mango already in the sauce it tastes deliberate rather than like a compromise.
• Slow Cooker Butter Chicken First, brown chicken thighs in a frying pan. Then, transfer them to a slow cooker along with the sauce ingredients. Cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 3 hours for tender results.
• Butter Chicken with Vegetables For a colourful and nutritious twist, add chopped peppers, carrots and peas to the sauce, or serve it over a bed of spinach or kale.

Storing, Freezing and Reheating

Butter chicken keeps very well and, like most curries, it is better the next day once the spices have settled. Cool it reasonably quickly, then keep it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.

It freezes for up to three months. The one thing worth knowing is that cream-based sauces can look slightly grainy when they thaw, which is nothing to worry about. Thaw overnight in the fridge, reheat gently in a pan rather than at a fierce boil, and stir well as it comes back together. A splash of cream or water at the end will bring the sauce back to where it was. Reheat it once, until piping hot right through. More on why cream sauces split, and how to stop it.

FAQ for Mango Butter Chicken

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A Few Words from the Chef

I hope you enjoyed preparing this lovely Mango Butter Chicken recipe (Murg Makhani). Please feel free to leave a comment below sharing your experience with the dish. I am always open to hearing your tweaks and suggestions, as they help the recipe along. Your feedback is valuable and greatly appreciated. Thank you!