This crock pot butter chicken is a rich and flavorful curry with tender chicken cooked in a creamy tomato and butter sauce, infused with aromatic spices, we’re going to let the slow cooker do most of the work, and with roughly 15-minute preptime, what’s not to love?
This Crock Pot Butter Chicken is creamy, lightly spiced and delicious – an easy recipe that’s perfect for the slow cooker.
It’s creamy and spicy – but not too spicy for the kids to enjoy too. Perfect with a bowl of fluffy rice.
📋 Ingredients?
I like to use diced chicken breast for this recipe. I often use boneless skinless chicken thighs when I’m cooking chicken for a long time (since thighs tend to be more tender than breast meat with long cooking), but I’ve tested this recipe with thighs and breast, and they both work well and both are tender and juicy.
📺 Watch how to make it
Full recipe with detailed steps in the recipe card at the end of this post.
- Start off by sealing the chopped chicken and onion in a pan (or in your slow cooker if it has a searing function) with oil and butter.
- Add the spices.
- Then add in the stock, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree (tomato paste) and sugar.
- Transfer to the slow cooker and place the lid. Cook for 4-5 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.
- After it’s been slow cooking you want to remove the cardamom pods and stir in some cream and you’re ready to serve.
👩🍳PRO TIP Sew the cardamom seeds together with a piece of natural cotton so you can easily fish them out later.
If you don’t have a searing function on your slow cooker then you can do these initial stages in a large frying pan/skillet and transfer to the slow cooker later.
🍽️ What to serve it with
I like to serve this slow cooker butter chicken with:
- Fluffy boiled basmati rice or Onion Fried rice,
- Lightly charred Garlic Naan Bread,
- A sprinkle of fresh coriander (fresh cilantro) and some nigella seeds,
- Garnish with some thinly sliced onions or you could use a simple tomato and onion salad,
- Some mango chutney on the side 😋
If you wanted to go low carb then you could serve it up with some Cauliflower Rice.
❓FAQ’s
You could use a spicier curry powder like madras curry powder or you could add half a teaspoon of chilli powder when you add the rest of the spices.
I use a Crock Pot CSC024 because I love its searing function, glass lid so I can see whats going on, and dishwasher-safe bowl, this baby
<–Affiliate link.
You can let it cool completely then place in an airtight container and put in the freezer for a quick dinner another night. Defrost overnight in the refrigerator (it will likely take longer than overnight to defrost if you freeze a large portion). Reheat in a saucepan over medium heat or in the microwave, stirring occasionally, until piping hot throughout.
Then you can cook your butter chicken curry on the hob (stove) using my other Butter Chicken Curry recipe < click here.
They’re nigella seeds. I like to sprinkle a few on for a unique flavor but don’t worry if you don’t have any in your store cupboard.
🍲 More easy Slow-Cooked recipes
This butter chicken was actually the first recipe I cooked in my slow cooker when we bought it a good few years ago. If, like me, you love an easy prep slow cooker dinner then check out these:
Stay updated with new recipes!
Subscribe to the newsletter to hear when I post a new recipe. I’m also on YouTube (new videos every week) and Instagram (behind-the-scenes stories & beautiful food photos).
If you’ve tried this crock pot butter chicken or any of my other dishes then please rate the recipe and let me know how you got on in the comments below, I love hearing your thoughts and add-ons to my recipes!
Crock Pot Butter Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 large onion peeled and diced
- 700 g (1 1/2 lbs) chicken breast approx. 4 large chicken breasts, diced
- 4 cloves garlic peeled and minced
- 1 tsp minced ginger
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 ½ tbsp garam masala
- 1 tbsp curry powder
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 240 ml (1 cup) chicken stock water plus a stock cube or bouillon for gluten free is fine
- 2 x 400ml (2 x 14 oz) tins of chopped tomatoes
- 2 tbsp tomato puree paste for US
- 2 tsp sugar
- 6 cardamom pods sew them together with a piece of string so you can easily fish them out later
- 125 ml (1/2 cup) double/heavy cream
- handful of chopped coriander to serve
Instructions
- Preheat your slow cooker to high.
- Heat the butter and oil in a large pan, add in the onion and chicken, and cook for 5-6 minutes until the onions are softened and the chicken is sealed.3 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp vegetable oil, 1 large onion, 700 g (1 1/2 lbs) chicken breast
- Add in the garlic, ginger, salt, garam masala, curry powder, paprika and cinnamon. Stir and cook for 1-2 minutes.4 cloves garlic, 1 tsp minced ginger, 1 tsp salt, 1 1/2 tbsp garam masala, 1 tbsp curry powder, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp cinnamon
- Add in the stock, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, sugar and cardamom. Stir then pour into your slow cooker and cook for 4-5 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.240 ml (1 cup) chicken stock, 2 x 400ml (2 x 14 oz) tins of chopped tomatoes, 2 tbsp tomato puree, 2 tsp sugar, 6 cardamom pods
- Remove the cardamom then stir in the cream and allow to heat through.125 ml (1/2 cup) double/heavy cream
- Serve over rice sprinkled with some corianderhandful of chopped coriander to serve
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This crockpot butter chicken recipe was first published in February 2015 and updated in February 2024 with new photos, a video, and extra information to help you make this delicious dinner.
Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links – which means if you buy the product I get a small commission (at no extra cost to you). If you do buy, then thank you! That’s what helps us to keep Kitchen Sanctuary running. The nutritional information provided is approximate and can vary depending on several factors. For more information please see our Terms & Conditions.
When you sew the cardamom pods do you use regular Cotten ?
Yes we use regular cotten but get the natural undied cotten.
Thanks
Chris
Did you mean to say tomato paste rather tha tomato puree? I love the recipe but mine does not come out anywhere near as creamy as your pictures look. I was wondering if it was the pure. What can I do to thicken it up?
Tastes great tho!
Hi Nicky,
We are in the UK and our Tomato Puree is the same as Tomato paste in the US, so yes go with Tomato Paste. I will update the recipe to reflect. 🙂
If you try it again and if its not thickening up then you could stir in a little cornstarch slurry (1 tbsp of cornstarch with 3 tbsp water mixed together) towards the end of the cooking.
Thanks again and really glad you enjoyed the recipe 🙂
Chris & Nicky
I have been trying for many many years to find a decent Butter Chicken recipe, even ( I can’t believe I am saying this out loud ) resorting to jars and ready prepped spice mixes, to no avail… This recipe is just fabulous, it really has that authentic taste that has evaded me for almost 1/3 of a century, Nicky thank you so much… Hope the rest of the recipes are as good… Of fto browse….Will keep you posted.
I made this and followed the recipe (without the cardamom pods because we don’t have them) and this did not taste like butter chicken. It was delicious, but I would call it a curry before butter chicken.
This recipe is amazing. There are a lot of recipes out there. Try this one. It is a bit spicy for you that can’t take the heat 😉 season accordingly. Flavourful and delicious!! Incredible!!
I tried this tonight, and it is really good.
Not too spicy but with plenty of flavor so my daughter will eat it, though I think I ended up with most of the cardamom pods!
If anyone around our table is going to get the cardamom pods its usually me too :). Glad you enjoyed it!
I made this exactly as written here and it was PERFECT. It would be easy to alter depending upon what folks like (more or less hot..spicy etc..) but I liked it as-is. This will be my ‘curry’ go-to recipe
Made this for dinner today, Steve loved it – result, fab recipe
This looks delicious and I look forward to making it. I like both the old and new photos. But why do you have to include so many photos (mainly the same). Once I see a nice looking dish I then just want to see the ingredients. So annoying having to scroll down through endless photos. Loads of bloggers seem to do the same thing!!
Thanks Julie, so glad you like the look of the recipe 🙂
I tend to include a number of photos for a few reasons:
1. I love taking lots of photos, and it gives people a choice of images to use if they want to pin a recipe to one of their Pinterest boards
2. Google likes a good amount of text and photos within a recipe. The more us bloggers please google, the higher our recipes are likely to appear in google search results (so the more like it is that you’ll find my recipe by doing a google search)
3. Having more text and photos provides more areas within a blog post for adverts to appear. I know these ads can be a little annoying, but it helps me to earn an income from my site – meaning I can spend more time creating and photographing recipes to share with people.
Do you think it would be more helpful to replace some of the images with process steps of the recipe? Or are you generally fine with using the recipe steps alone?
Hope that info helps, and please continue to come back for more 🙂
Hi Nicky, I’m English so not sure how much 1 cup of chicken stock is…?
Hi Trudy, it’s 240ml (I’ve updated the recipe with that info too). Thanks 🙂