Healthy Butter Chicken

Is there such thing as Healthy Butter Chicken? For many (maybe most…) even the idea of it is sacrilege. By it’s very nature and name, it is a curry laden with butter and cream to give a luxurious and creamy dish. But sometimes you want all the flavour of a butter chicken without the heaviness or indulgence factor. So I wanted to see if could make a butter chicken recipe that was delicious, full of flavours of the original and relatively healthy by comparison. And I think I have it sorted!

The key to the recipe is finding a good curry base. You want one that is made from dry spices only, not a paste. The pastes, whilst delicious, have a lot more oil which is what we are trying to cut down on. By using a dry spice mix you can control the amount of oil that goes into the curry. I find the best ones come from your local Indian or Asian spice shop that stock a wide range of curry pastes and powders already prepared. You can’t go wrong.

The addition of the cauliflower helps distract from the lack of cream as well. As it cooks down and softens, it helps thicken the sauce and provide an element of creaminess. Strange that cauliflower can do that but trust me – it works! And it adds a great serve of vegetables into a curry that is normally lacking.

Now if healthy butter chicken has you or the family shaking their heads, you can amp this curry back up. Simply add around 150mL of cream to the sauce right at the end of cooking to add back that indulgence factor!