Being married to an Indian guy, I’ve grown to love Indian food (used to hate it). For awhile now I’ve been wanting to cook more Indian food at home. We made sambar, which is a spicy Indian vegetable soup/daal, but it took almost 4 hours for us to prep and cook it! Nobody has time for that. I’ve also cooked some decent saag, an okay tikka masala, and an atrocious korma. This butter chicken recipe I recently came across and tweaked it a bit to fit my family’s tastes and to make it even more nutritious! And don’t let the name fool you, there is no butter or even ghee in this, but it tastes like a traditional Indian butter chicken dish. It’s super easy and the best Indian food I’ve cooked BY FAR! You only need to purchase a couple Indian spices to make it! A word to the wise when using Indian spices: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS sauté your spices in oil before adding in a lot of liquid. This releases the oils and flavors in the spices. If you skip this step and add them in with a bunch of liquid, you’ll get less flavor and a more chalky texture. You can also adjust the spice to suit your level. Being on Whole30, I was hesitant to make Indian food because I thought nothing went better with a sweet and savory curry than some fresh chapati and brown rice. I’ve been cooking a lot of spaghetti squash these days and have found that the curries on top of some spaghetti squash are just as good, if not better, because I feel responsible and proud of myself when eating it! You can pretty much add any vegetables you’d like into this. In the recipe, I’ve put just onions and mushrooms, but I’ve done sweet potatoes and eggplant before, even asparagus!
Ingredients
1 lb boneless chicken breasts, thighs, your choice
1 medium red onion, chopped
4-6 mushrooms, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced (We just keep a big ol’ jar of THIS in our fridge
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, minced (We also keep THIS ginger paste in there, too. HUGE time saver!)
1 Tablespoon coconut oil
2 teaspoons garam masala (Get some HERE)
1 teaspoon curry powder (Buy some online!)
3 ounces tomato paste (that’s 1/2 a small can, people)
14 ounce can of coconut milk (not lite)
salt and pepper to taste
Chop chicken into 1″ cubes and cook in large pan with the coconut oil. You don’t need to fully cook the chicken, as it will sit in the sauce and cook more later. Toss in the onions and mushrooms until onions are nearing translucency. Add in garlic, ginger, garam masala, and curry powder. DON’T FORGET TO SEASON WITH SALT AND PEPPER! Cook together until everything becomes nice and fragrant – about 3-4 minutes. Add in tomato paste and mix together until it is evenly distributed. Add in coconut milk and mix together until the curry is a pretty reddish color. Salt and pepper again. simmer over low-med for 10-15 minutes to really get the flavors workin’ into that chicken! Serve over spaghetti squash, cauliflower rice, brown rice, or just eat it like a soup!
See Jo GO GO! 