This is a really easy Instant Pot butter chicken recipe that is moist and full of flavor. It only takes 5 minutes to cook and the perfect family dinner with a side of naan. If you’re never tried making pressure cooker butter chicken this is an easy one to start with. Add your own spices to make it just right for you!
I went out to eat Indian food with a few friends when I went to a conference in Utah last month. I hadn’t had it in years and wasn’t sure what to order so my friend suggested butter chicken since it was a milder dish and she said “everyone loves it”. It. Was. Amazing! Now that I am all about my pressure cooker I was sure I could make a simple version (my take on it), and I came up with this easy Instant Pot butter chicken recipe that tastes pretty similar! One of our favorite chicken Instant Pot recipes. (originally published 7/17)
Served with a side of Instant Pot white rice and/or naan this easy butter chicken recipe is definitely a winner at our house when I make it!
First of all if you don’t have one of these life changing kitchen appliances, or are scared to use it, let me convince you why it’s amazing.
- I’m a busy mom with three kids and we both work full time. One thing we love is eating one meal together. It allows us to talk about our days and truly unplug.
- The more I worked the more our dinners together dropped off, until I got my Instant Pot…..now dinners only took 30 min. MAX including prep time.
You’ve got to try it.
I am sure there are a lot of variations of butter chicken recipes and of course with any sort of recipe you should adjust the spice level to your liking. I will say this one is on the milder side of things so if you like more spice or a more pungent flavor then just add more chili powder, garam masala, cumin, or all 3.
You can use chicken breasts cut up instead of chicken thighs but thighs are much moister and have a lot of flavor themselves so I prefer them for this recipe. Of course there are many ways to make butter chicken so this may not be totally authentic but it is my take on it and tastes very similar to the one I had last month that I loved.
It’s very much a throw it in and go kinda’ meal and if I am in a real rush I throw on some Minute rice on the stovetop and they are done in less than 10 minutes flat…now that’s a quick dinner!
I haven’t made homemade naan myself yet and haven’t found a store in town that carries it on a regular basis so I use rice but making it myself is on my list of things to do.
- Until then I found this super easy naan bread recipe you can use and pair with my easy Instant Pot butter chicken, seeing a trend here…EASY. 😉
Like I said, if you have specific spices you use, and amounts, then go with that if it is to your liking but use my timing so you can make it in your pressure cooker.
If you don’t have your own specific butter chicken recipe then use mine, we love it! If you’d like to make some healthy butter chicken in your crockpot here’s another recipe to try.
Here are a few things you may not have that you’ll need to make this easy Instant Pot butter chicken:
- Garam Masala
- Cumin
- Chopped Ginger
- Chili Powder (optional but good even if you only add a bit, my version is not spicy)
- Rice – this is how you make fluffy Instant Pot white rice
Looking for more easy Instant Pot chicken recipes?
- Instant Pot spicy teriyaki chicken thighs
- Instant Pot orange chicken recipe
- Spicy honey Instant Pot chicken
- Pressure cooker cheesy chicken spaghetti
Here’s the printable recipe as well:
Easy Instant Pot butter chicken
Ingredients
- 6 chicken thighs boneless, skinless, cut into cubes
- 1 1/2 c heavy cream
- 1 1/2 c tomato sauce
- 1/2 onion
- 5 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp garlic minced
- 1 tbsp ginger chopped
- 1 1/2 tsp chili powder
- 1 1/2 tsp cumin
- 3 tsp garam masala
- 2 tbsp corn starch optional to thicken sauce at the end
Instructions
- Turn your Instant Pot to saute, medium, and add butter.
- When butter is melted add cubed chicken and onion.
- Cook just enough for chicken pieces to cook just a touch on the outside.
- Add all other ingredients into your Instant Pot or pressure cooker and mix together well.
- Put lid on and close steam valve.
- Set Instant Pot to manual, pressure, low, for 5 minutes. (enough time if cut into bite size pieces, if larger pieces increase time)
- When done move steam valve just slightly so steam comes out slowly.
- Carefully lift lid. Serve immediately or remove chicken and set to saute low for just a few minutes. Put some of the hot liquid in a small bowl with 1 tbsp of cornstarch and whisk together, add back into the pot and stir. May do this again with another tbsp. depending on how thick you want the sauce to be.
- Sauce will thicken more as it sits. Turn off, add chicken back in, and serve with rice and/or naan.
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Yummy
I love how quick and easy this recipe is in an Instant Pot. The sauce is fantastic over rice.
The best over rice!
My favorite butter chicken recipe. So easy to make and so yummy!
Made this last night, my 2nd use of my new instant pot. Was delicious and so easy to make!
So glad you loved it
I LOVE this recipe. I put in on my blog for a review, and gave you 4.5/5 on the Angie rating!!
http://angiecooksinportland.blogspot.com/2018/09/instant-pot-butter-chicken-review-and.html
This was the first time I ever used the instant pot, and I loved it so much. Thank you so much for sharing. Please let me know if you want me to change anything on my blog about what I’ve written. I think it is very clear that this recipe is yours, and I’m not claiming it as mine.
Angie
Every time I add any cream products to IP while pressure cooking, it ends up spitting out pressure valve and making a huge mess. I see you add heavy cream and then turn on. Am I reading that right?
This was so good! I’ve made this twice. The first time I followed the recipe exactly. The second time I used boneless chicken breast instead of thighs. I also replaced the heavy cream with a can of full fat coconut milk. It wasn’t as thick when using the coconut milk so I did use the cornstarch which I don’t feel it needed when using the heavy cream. It was just as good the second time with the substitutions I made.
OMg this recipe was amazing!! Definitely going into my Instant Pot favorites. Can’t imagine how anyone could think this was bland. Very saucy which we lapped up w/ garlic naan & basmati rice.
i keep getting a burn notice. i had to open it up and add water. we will see how this turns out.
This meal was AMAZING! I added a little cayenne pepper for some kick and it worked great. Thanks for posting this recipe!
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I was disappointed in that it was rather bland. I’m not sure why. My husband was afraid it was going to be like curry chicken or too spicy but he was okay with it. Maybe the Fenugreek spice that was mentioned might make a difference?
I am not a cook, so I made the mistake of putting the cornstarch in with all the otherr ingredients as it read to mix all ingredients in after chicken and onion cooked. Eeek! I hope I don’t mess up the whole dish because of this one mistake. Let’s see….
It should probably be fine.
My whole family LOVES this recipe. Thank you so much for sharing it!
Yeah!! I’m so glad!
Making this tonight. A favorite past time dish and so grateful you’ve adapted it to the Instant Pot! The nutrition info…is that just for the chicken or chicken and rice together?
So glad. The info is generated by the recipe widget so I don’t know how accurate it is. It calculates using everything listed in ingredients.
Made it tonight; was good! However, the butter ended up separating so the final dish looked greasy, with a lot of the butter swirling around in puddles. It needed constant mixing to look good. I found a slow cooker butter chicken recipe that includes flour; I think putting a tablespoon or two in the pot toward the end of the sauté stage might help. And I agree with another comment about the taste not quite like butter chicken should be. Fenugreek might be the answer! I’ll try it next time.
What size can of tomato sauce? Trying this out tonight but not sure how much ill need.
Says 1 1/2 c. in recipe.
One 15 oz can of tomato sauce is perfect… exacatly 1.5 cups.
Awesome! thanks. Ill try out your idea with the flour as well
So I just made this tonight for the family and we have no leftovers…. so that’s a good thing and also a very bad one. I substituted the heavy cream for a can of coconut cream and it definitely made the dish better. I also incorporated 2 tea spoons of tapioca flour as an emulsifier and there was no separation of butter from the rest of the ingredients. so if you need a more gluten or dairy free way of doing it both of these methods seem to work, I also added 2 teaspoons of turmeric but this was more for color than for taste.
how would you add rice to this?
I haven’t done that as of yet in the same pot.
Last night, I made a lemon chicken recipe and i added 1 1/2 C. Uncle Bens rice and
1 1/2 C chicken stock to the pot, then I put the chicken on top. Same pressure time. I think you could add rice and some extra water.. maybe not the whole cup and a half because the butter chicken recipe is pretty saucy. Maybe 1 cup.. anyway, the recipe i did came out perfect. Just try adding the rice. If it’s not quite the right consistency, so what. It’s going to taste fantastic. Ive decided to just go for it with this magic pot.
Sorry, I should have said that the rice was not in the chicken recipe. I just wanted all that flavour in my rice too.
Hi ! My name is Staci.
Can I cook The Butter Chicken Recipe in a Slow Cooker ?
I haven’t done that yet
Real Butter Chicken has the spice Fenugreek (methi in Indian Groceries). The taste isn’t quite right without it.
Would you add the Fenugreek in addition to the other ingredients? 1.5 tsp? Thanks. Really liked it but wouldn’t mind just a little more something
Yes with the spices I would say.
I’m new to cooking with my Instant Pot. I’ve learnt that there are 2 ways to release the pressure. one is to do a quick release and then other is natural release. Do i do a quick releases in this case?
I just move slightly so steam comes out slowly as stated. You can do a quick release too, that would be fine.
I did this and it was amazibg. i find it has a bit of bite to it but not to the point i cant eat it. My daughter however will not eat it. What can i take out or reduce to make it more milder.
If you want it milder just cut the spices in half next time.
Has anyone ever used regular, thawed chicken breasts instead of thighs? Any feedback would be appreciated.
Yes, I just tried it for the first time today with chicken breast cut in cubes and I added a whole onion, because I love to cook with a lot of onions. Turned out fantastic!
So glad!!
How long on the chicken breasts
So excited to try. Says half an onion. Diced or just half an onion? Thanks.
Diced
This was the 2nd recipe I tried in my new Instant Pot. It turned out fantastic!
I mixed a tablespoon of water with a tablespoon of organic cornstarch and added it at the end to thicken it up the sauce and served it over organic short grain brown rice. I didn’t add the chili powder this time. Maybe I’ll get brave and try it with the chili powder next time. It was delicious without it.
This recipe will definitely get added to my regular recipe list!
So glad you loved it!!
I still need a rice cooker to cook their e.
Could you substitute something for the heavy cream to make the recipe lower in fat?
You can but it wouldn’t taste quite the same and be thinner.
I used sour cream instead of heavy cream and it worked out great.
Awesome!!
Try coconut cream
I use fat free half and half
I made this last night and the family loved the flavors and the meal was just fantastic. However, I changed it a little from the original – we like spice and so I increased all the spices by a third. I also added a sweet yellow bell pepper for color and a mini eggplant along with the chicken.
I also added 1 can of Rotel’s diced tomatoes and green Chili peppers and left the rest. My wife who eats very little had second helpings of the dish – very good.
Glad you loved it and could tweak it to make it the way you love it too!
Will try this as soon as we get back from this darn Hurricane. Just an fyi, many years ago I bought a microwave rice steamer. Makes amazing rice and have never cooked it any other way since 😊
I remember those!! Stay safe.
Hi… Received my IP today. Just finished the “water test”.
Looking forward to steel cut oats for breakfast and your butter chicken for dinner in which I will increases the seasoning (as per several comments below-thank u)
Thanks for great recipes for an IP beginner.
Bland for my family. I set the pot to sauté and just kept adding Chile powder, cumin, Garam masala until we got real flavor. I prob tripled the spices. And it thickened nicely on sauté. Very good. All six family members liked it!
Is this spicy and if so how would I cut it to mild spicy?
No it’s not spicy! I used curry powder instead of cumin and I didn’t think it was spicy at all. And I am a wimp when it comes to spicy things!
No it isn’t spicy, could make it spicier but I like it mild.
This will be my first Instant Pot meal. If I double the amount of chicken, will there be enough sauce, or should I double the entire recipe? I have the 8 qt. pot.
Thanks!
There is a decent amount of sauce so depending on how much you prefer it should be okay.
How might you adjust cooking this using frozen chicken breasts?
Haven’t used frozen yet and you wouldn’t be able to cut into chunks that way. If put in whole I’d increase time 2-3 minutes and check on it.
Could you substitute coconut milk for the cream?
I haven’t but that may taste good!
/
Not sure my family will like indian tastes.. Is it super strong
We have a serious heat wave here and 30 minutes meal is what we need ! Indian flavours ? Oh yes ! Hooked! thank you so much !