Slow Cooker Butter Chicken Recipe | Little Sunny Kitchen (2024)

Make this Slow Cooker Butter Chicken for a flavorful dinner that your whole family will love! It’s deliciously spiced (but not hot spicy!), super creamy, comforting, and the chicken is so tender and juicy!

Butter chicken (murgh makhani) is a popular Indian takeout dish, it’s a chicken curry made with a cream tomato-based sauce and warm spices. The curry is mild which means that it’s typically not very spicy (spiced just not hot!). Butter chicken is often served over basmati rice, fresh naan bread, and fresh cilantro leaves.

My recipe here is made with simple ingredients that are very easy to find. It’s not an authentic version, but it tastes quite similar (in my opinion, of course). I simplified this recipe as much as possible to make it easy for families to make a delicious meal on busy weeknights.

The slow cooker will do all the work for you, just toss all the ingredients in the Crockpot and forget it! You will end up with juicy and tender chicken thighs that you will cut up into bite-size pieces after cooking to be coated in the flavorful sauce.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• It’s super creamy, mild, saucy, buttery, and comforting which makes it a great family-friendly meal.
• The prep is SO easy, it’s a dump and start meal and needs just 10 minutes of prep.
• It will make your kitchen smell amazing! The spices used in this recipe are very aromatic and taste delicious.
• It doesn’t need much, you can serve it with basmati rice that you can make in your Instant Pot (find my Instant Pot basmati rice recipe here), or over the stovetop and/or serve it with naan bread that you can either buy or make at home. I have a great naan bread recipe if you want to make it!

The Ingredients

• Chicken: I like to use boneless and skinless chicken thighs (fillets) for the juicy and tender chicken, but if you would like to use chicken breasts as I did in my stovetop butter chicken recipe, that’s fine!
• Garlic and ginger: A must in all Indian cooking!
• Tomato sauce: I use blended tomato sauce for a silky smooth sauce. Passata, tomato, fresh tomatoes that are blended, or a can of crushed tomatoes that are blended and sieved can also be used in this recipe.
• Cream: I like to use heavy whipping cream (it’s called double cream in the UK) for a rich and creamy sauce. You can use half and half to lighten the sauce up, but the sauce will turn out thinner. For dairy-free, use full-fat coconut milk.
• Butter: The reason why this dish is called butter chicken!
• Spices: You will need garam masala (find my homemade garam masala recipe here), smoked paprika, chili powder (skip if feeding children), cumin, turmeric, and salt.

Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.

How to Make the Best Slow Cooker Butter Chicken

1. To the slow cooker, add ginger, garlic, tomato sauce, spices, salt, and sugar. Give everything a good stir, then add the chicken thighs and coat them in the sauce.
2. Scatter the butter all over the top, cover, and cook on HIGH for 1.5-2 hours, or on LOW for 4-6 hours. The chicken is done when its internal temperature reaches 165°F with an instant read thermometer. Just make sure that you don’t overcook the chicken!
3. Remove the chicken, and place on a cutting board to cool enough to be handled.
4. Stir in the heavy cream in the sauce, and whisk until the sauce is creamy.
5. Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces, and return to the sauce. NOTE: Do not cut the chicken before cooking it as it can easily overcook in the slow cooker, it can also fall apart in the sauce.
6. Serve with basmati rice and naan bread, garnish with fresh parsley, mint, or cilantro.

Top Tips

1. I used a 4-quart Crockpot for this recipe. It’s a cheap manual Crockpot that I use when I make smaller amounts of food. If I was to make a whole chicken or large meat in the slow cooker, I’d use my 6-quart Crockpot instead.
2. Do not add water, the chicken will produce enough liquid for the sauce. Adding liquid will make the sauce too thin.
3. Tomato sauce can be substituted with Passata, or a can of plain tomatoes that are blended and sieved.
4. Traditionally, a little bit of sugar is added to the sauce to make it sweeter. I personally don’t add any sugar to my butter chicken, and it tastes great (could be the tomato sauce that I use being not acidic). But feel free to add 1 teaspoon of granulated or brown sugar to the sauce before cooking.
5. If you don’t have fresh ginger available, you can use ½ teaspoon of ground ginger instead.
6. This dish is medium spicy (heat), so if you’re feeding children then I recommend that you leave the chili powder out.
7. You can make your owngaram masalamix at home. I havethe recipeon my website. Making your homemade seasonings at home is much cheaper, and healthier as store-bought seasonings usually contain added sugar. If you can’t make it at home, you can buygaram masalafrom Amazon.
8. You can substitute heavy cream with half and half, or coconut milk for a non-dairy option (keep in mind that coconut milk is not a traditional ingredient in butter chicken, but it tastes great!). When you make any substitution to the cream, the sauce won’t be as creamy as if you use heavy cream.
9. Do not add the cream before cooking as it might separate.
10. If you double the ingredients, do not adjust the cooking time.
11. Garnish with fresh herbs before serving. The recommended herbs for garnish are fresh cilantro, mint leaves, and parsley.
12. Serve withInstant Pot basmatiorbrown rice, and/orfresh naan.
13. For a vegan version of this dish, check out my vegan cauliflower butter chicken recipe.
14. You can make this in the Instant Pot if you like, find my Instant Pot butter chicken recipe here. It’s a very popular recipe with hundreds of great reviews!

Storing Tips

• Fridge:Store leftovers in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
• Reheat:Reheat in the microwave and make sure that you add a splash of water before reheating as otherwise, the sauce will be too thick.
• Freezer:Freeze in a freezer-safe container for up to 3 months. Butter chicken freezes well so you can cook a larger batch, and freeze for an easy and quick dinner option!