This Indian Instant Pot Butter Chicken recipe is restaurant quality, but made in under 30 minutes at home. So easy, and so good—the sauce is bursting with flavor!
Looking for more Instant Pot chicken ideas to add to your meal plan? You’ll love Instant Pot Chicken Adobo and Instant Pot Chicken Pasta too!
Why You’ll Love This Butter Chicken
If you’re trying to introduce Indian food to your family, there’s no better place to start than butter chicken. The heat is tempered by a creamy sauce, plus chicken is always a winner!
This Instant Pot butter chicken is one of my family’s favorites. Here’s why you’re going to love it too:
- The Instant Pot makes it quick and easy. This is the kind of recipe you can rely on whenever you need a delicious weeknight dinner!
- It’s absolutely loaded with flavor thanks to all those spices. No bland chicken here!
- The rich, creamy sauce is absolutely irresistible. You’ll want to soak up every last bit of it with a piece of naan or rice.
- Because you’re making it at home, you can easily adjust the heat level.
Important Ingredient Notes
- Unsalted butter – It’s called butter chicken, so there’s going to be a lot of butter! This is what makes the sauce so rich.
- Boneless skinless chicken thighs – If you use boneless skinless chicken breasts instead, note that they take slightly less time to cook.
- Crushed tomatoes – This forms the base of the sauce. I like using crushed tomatoes because they have more texture than tomato sauce, but they’re saucier than diced tomatoes.
- Fresh ginger – Fresh ginger is more pungent than dried. I highly recommend it!
- Spices – Paprika, cumin, and garam masala combine to give you authentic flavor, but they’re all ingredients you can easily find at most grocery stores.
- Jalapeño – Feel free to adjust the heat by adding more or less.
- Heavy whipping cream – For that signature silky, rich butter chicken sauce. If you’d like a slightly different flavor profile, you can substitute full-fat coconut milk.
- Plain Greek yogurt – This makes the sauce thick, rich, and slightly tangy. It also helps balance the heat.
How to Make Instant Pot Butter Chicken
Brown the chicken: Turn the pressure cooker to “SAUTE” and melt the butter inside. Lightly brown the chicken for about 2 minutes per side. Remove to a cutting board and cut it into bite-size pieces.
Deglaze: Add 1 1/2 cups of water to the pressure cooker and use a wooden spoon to scrape up the bits on the bottom of the pan.
Cook:
- Hit “cancel” then stir in the tomatoes, ginger, spices, salt, and jalapeno and add the chicken.
- Turn the Instant Pot to “High Pressure” for 6 minutes.
- When cook time ends, allow a natural release for 5 minutes, then do a quick release until the valve drops.
Finish:
- In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch with about 2 tablespoons of the sauce from the pressure cooker.
- Pour the slurry into the Instant Pot and set it to “SAUTE.”
- Cook for several minutes, while stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens.
- Turn off the Instant Pot. Stir in the cream, yogurt, and cilantro.
- Serve with rice and naan.
Recipe FAQs
Garam masala is a blend of nearly 32 spices, including cumin, coriander, green and black cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, bay leaves, peppercorns, fennel, mace and dried chilies. In most grocery stores it can be found in the spice aisle right next to the garlic, but for a quick substitute in today’s recipe, you can use 3 tsp cumin and 1 tsp allspice.
Full-fat coconut milk is a great substitute, but if you want something a little lighter, you can use half-and-half. I don’t recommend trying to use milk, or your sauce will be thin.
Heavy cream or yogurt thickens butter chicken—in this recipe we use both, plus cornstarch too for an extra thick sauce.
MORE Instant Pot Recipes
- Sloppy Joes are the perfect, messy way to say ‘I love you’ to your family in food form!
- Make this Beef Stroganoff or Instant Pot Spaghetti for a great pasta dinner!
- This easy Instant Pot Pork Chops Recipe makes juicy, tender, and flavorful chops every time! Just like this Pot Roast Recipe!
- Instant Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup will warm your homes, hearts, and bellies!
- Try this Crack Chicken that you and your whole family will be obsessed with!
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Instant Pot Butter Chicken
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- 2 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 1 ½ cups water
- 1 can crushed tomatoes 28 oz
- 2 Tablespoons fresh ginger
- 1 Tablespoon paprika
- 1 Tablespoon cumin
- 1 Tablespoon Garam Masala
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 jalapeno seeded and diced.
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- ¾ cup plain greek yogurt
- ¼ cup fresh cilantro
Instructions
- Turn the pressure cooker on "SAUTE" and add butter until melted. Lightly brown each side of the chicken for about 2 minutes per side. Remove to a cutting board and cut into bite size pieces.
- While still on "SAUTE" add 1 1/2 cups of water to the pressure cooker. Use a wooden spoon to scrape up the bits on the bottom of the pan. By not doing this step, you could result in a burn notice.
- Hit "cancel" then add the remaining sauce ingredients: tomatoes, ginger, paprika, cumin, garam masala, salt, and jalapeno. Stir to combine. Add chicken to Instant Pot.
- Turn Instant Pot to "High Pressure" for 6 minutes.
- When cook time ends, allow to natural release for 5 minutes, then do a quick release until the valve drops.
- In a small bowl, whisk together 2 Tbsp of cornstarch with about 2 Tbsp of the hot sauce from the pressure cooker. Pour into the Instant Pot and turn on "SAUTE."
- Cook for several minutes, while stirring constantly, until sauce thickens.
- Turn off Instant Pot. Add cream, yogurt, and cilantro to the mixture and stir until combined.
- Serve over rice with Naan bread. ENJOY.
Notes
- Dice one jalapeno very tiny for a small amount of spice. The cream and yogurt offset the heat in this dish. If you like it spicier, add more jalapeno.
- Make this vegetarian by omitting the chicken and stirring in chickpeas in Step 5.
- Leftovers taste amazing, so make extra rice for tomorrow’s lunch!
- NOTE: The cook and prep time do not account for the time it takes for the pressure cooker to come to pressure. This took approximately 10 minutes for today’s recipe.
- I used my Instant Pot 6qt Duo to create this recipe, using a different size may affect the results and cook time.
Nutrition
This Indian Instant Pot Butter Chicken Recipe is restaurant quality, but made in under 30 minutes at home. So easy, and so good, the sauce is bursting with flavor!
I detest yogurt and it has ruined the taste of any recipe that i have prepared with it (at least for my husband’s palate and mine). Do you think I could substitute sour cream for the yogurt in this recipe?
Yep that would be fine!
What a fantastic recipe! My daughter said it tasted like a restaurant. Thank you so much for all your efforts.
How do you save the recipes on here? I do not use Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter to save recipes. If web sites are too difficult to use then, I don’t.
You could print the recipe you like and store it in a binder 🙂
I love using the IP – thanks for great recipe!