This mouth-watering Butter Chicken dish is literally a "set it and forget it" recipe!
My goal when it comes to cooking is to reduce the amount of time spent prepping a dish, but still have a yummy feast in the end. This may sound like a dream and the desire to have the best of both worlds, but one kitchen contraption makes the dream a reality. The slow cooker is my favorite out of all my kitchen appliances.
I have "the original slow cooker" -- the trusted Crock Pot, and I am always excited to try new recipes. This is by far my all-time favorite recipe I've found so far (courtesy of Slow Cooker Gourmet), as I've made it a few times in the past few weeks. It pairs perfectly with rice for a hearty lunch or dinner.
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1/2 sweet yellow onion diced
- 3 teaspoons jarred minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon red curry paste
- 2 teaspoons curry powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 14.5 oz can coconut milk
- 6 oz can tomato paste
- 1/2 cup heavy cream for later
- 2 cups Basmati Rice
DIRECTIONS:
Cut the raw chicken into bite-sized chunks. I prefer to use my Kitchen Aid scissors for this job (I learned this trick from my dad). It is much easier than using a cutting board and knife, as I hate cutting meat products on my cutting boards.
Then --and this is the FUN part -- literally throw all of your ingredients (NOT the cream and rice, those are added AFTER the chicken is cooked!) into the slow cooker. Give it a good stir and cook on HIGH for 3 hours. I love this part because I walk away and let the slow cooker do its magic.
Once the chicken is fully cooked at the end of the three hours, pour in the cream and stir again. You're done!
To serve, I usually make a nice pot of fluffy Basmati rice in a rice cooker and pour the Butter Chicken over the rice.
TIPS:
- I've used both regular and reduced fat coconut milk -- the resulting taste is the same and we did not notice a difference. I prefer Trader Joe's coconut milk (see the photo above) since they have no weird ingredients, no gums or preservatives (see my article on those pesky additives here).
- Make sure not to start this dish too close to bedtime (I have a few times) as it is hot and cannot be refrigerated right away, and I hate leaving chicken out, even in a slow cooker, overnight.
- This dish makes quite a few servings, at least four if not more.
- I usually have more sauce leftover than actual chicken, and in that case, I just add chickpeas to make another yummy alternative dish.
This recipe is from the Slow Cooker Gourmet website, and you can see the full recipe with nutritional information here.
Have you ever had Butter Chicken? Will you try making this dish? Let us know in the comments below! Happy cooking!
