Slow Cooker Butter Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 lb / 450 g Boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
• ½ medium Yellow onion, finely minced
• 2 Tbsp Unsalted butter
• 3 Garlic cloves, minced
• 1 Tbsp Fresh ginger, grated
• 2 tsp Curry powder
• 1 tsp Red curry paste
• 2 Tbsp Garam masala
• ½ tsp Ground turmeric
• ¼ tsp Cayenne pepper
• ¼ tsp Fine salt
• 1 can (6 oz / 170 g) Tomato paste
• 1 can (14 oz / 397 g) Canned unsweetened coconut milk
• ½ cup / 123 g Plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
• ¼ cup Half-and-half
• As needed Cooked rice, for serving

Method

1. Stir the coconut milk, Greek yogurt, and half-and-half in a bowl until the yogurt disappears. Add the tomato paste, garlic, ginger, curry powder, red curry paste, garam masala, turmeric, cayenne, and salt. Stir until you cannot see lumps of paste. The cayenne here is ¼ teaspoon. The thread used up to 1 teaspoon when the cook wanted it hot. That hotter spoon is in the spicy swap, not in this pot.
2. Grease a slow cooker that holds at least 4 quarts. A light coat of oil is extra. It is not in the measured ingredients. Scatter the onion over the bottom. Add the chicken. Pour the sauce over the chicken so the pieces are covered. Set the butter on top.
3. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours, or on low for 6 to 8 hours. Stir once or twice if you are home. The chicken should be cooked through, with no pink in the center of the thickest piece, and it should pull apart with a spoon. If a piece is still firm, give the pot more time.
4. Taste the sauce. The measured salt is only ¼ teaspoon. Add more salt, and black pepper if you want it, only if the sauce tastes flat. That extra salt is not in the count. Spoon it into 4 bowls. Cooked rice on the side is the usual plate. The rice is not in the measured ingredients. The curry keeps covered in the fridge for a few days. Reheat until the chicken is hot in the center again.

Nutrition

Kitchen estimate only, not lab-verified. Counted as 1 of 4 bowls of the curry: the chicken, onion, butter, garlic, ginger, curry powder, red curry paste, garam masala, turmeric, cayenne, salt, tomato paste, coconut milk, Greek yogurt, and half-and-half. Rice, oil for the crock, and extra salt at the end are not in the count. The thread does not number the bowls. Four is the cut used here. The tomato paste row is unsalted, so a salted can would add sodium. The yogurt grams are half of a 245 g cup because the Greek whole-milk row has no cup of its own. Added sugars are 0. The sugars in the count come from the tomato paste, coconut milk, yogurt, and spices.

Guest diet / allergy swaps

Short kitchen notes for guests. A fuller gluten-free or dairy-free ingredient list, when we have one, is in the panels below.

• Dairy-free

  Use 2 Tbsp of oil, or a dairy-free butter-style stick, in place of the butter. Use ½ cup of plain unsweetened coconut yogurt in place of the Greek yogurt, or leave the yogurt out. Leave out the half-and-half and add ¼ cup more of the canned coconut milk. Read the coconut can. Some labels group coconut with tree nuts. The sauce will taste more of coconut. This is a kitchen note, not a dairy-free certification.

• Gluten-free style

  The pot has no flour or pasta. Curry powder, garam masala, and red curry paste are the places wheat can hide. Read those jars. Chicken, onion, butter, garlic, ginger, tomato paste, coconut milk, yogurt, half-and-half, salt, turmeric, and cayenne do not call for wheat. This is a kitchen note, not a gluten-free certification.

• Spicy

  The thread used 1–2 teaspoons of red curry paste, ½–1 teaspoon of turmeric, and up to 1 teaspoon of cayenne. For that hotter pot, use 2 teaspoons of paste, 1 teaspoon of turmeric, and 1 teaspoon of cayenne. This version stays at the mild end.

• No chicken

  This pot is built on chicken breast. Use 1 lb / 450 g of boneless turkey breast, cut the same way, and cook it until the center is no longer pink. The plate is no longer chicken.

• Coconut

  The sauce uses one can of coconut milk. Some packages group coconut with tree nuts. Read the can. This is a kitchen note, not an allergen clearance.

• Fish or shellfish in the paste

  Some red curry pastes include fish sauce or shrimp paste. Read the jar. Use one that does not list fish or shellfish if the plate should skip them. This is a kitchen note, not a medical clearance.