Being a connoisseur of foods, I like butter chicken among other meat dishes, but my family (especially the kids) LOVE butter chicken! When we dine 
at an Indian restaurant, they always order the Butter Chicken and when I occasionally feel like playing short order cook, I find myself making butter chicken. Can’t really blame them, after all that creamy, mouthwatering delicious, buttery, rich flavorful gravy is to die for! Only problem, since I was cooking it quite frequently, I started to feel slight pangs at blocking their arteries with all that butter and cream. Well, desperate times call for desperate measures so I decided to play with it and tweak the recipe around. I hit jackpot ! A recipe was born and it was so good that I tricked them into believing it was the real deal!
at an Indian restaurant, they always order the Butter Chicken and when I occasionally feel like playing short order cook, I find myself making butter chicken. Can’t really blame them, after all that creamy, mouthwatering delicious, buttery, rich flavorful gravy is to die for! Only problem, since I was cooking it quite frequently, I started to feel slight pangs at blocking their arteries with all that butter and cream. Well, desperate times call for desperate measures so I decided to play with it and tweak the recipe around. I hit jackpot ! A recipe was born and it was so good that I tricked them into believing it was the real deal!
The trick to this recipe is to substitute the ghee or butter with a thick , viscous oil like Olive oil or Sesame oil which will give it the same rich oily consistency , but without murdering your heart. Another magic ingredient is thick yogurt (low fat) instead of cream giving it that same creamy feel. If you want,you can add some nut powders or blend some nuts together to give it a richer feel and turn into a simply rich buttery dish sans thebutter. Yet another trick is to blend the ingredients to give it seamless, smooth gravy.
Just to prove how heart healthy this dish is in comparison to standard butter chicken, I have prepared Nutrition Facts Labels for both types of chicken.
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| Regular ” Butter Chicken “ |
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| Healthy Butter chicken sans the butter Comparing the two recipes, you can see the healthy version is 10 gms lower in fat and far more important it has only 2.5 gms of saturated fat vs a whopping 15 gms in the standard version! Also, note the 100 calorie difference in a portion size of one serving. Hmmmmm ….
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I rest my case and present my recipe card! Try it…. it may taste much better than restaurant style butter chicken …… and you can eat more of it because it’s actually quite healthy! Enjoy!
Notes on Olive Oil: To get the most of the heart healthy benefits of Olive oil, use extra virgin Olive oil. Just to breakdown the process – Olives are put through a press and voila : a dark green liquid called extra virgin Olive oil! and then because Olives are such a magical fruit with so much goodness still left in them, the same Olives are put through the press again and you get medium strength oil and then they are put through the press again to get light Olive oil. You get the picture. The strong green stuff has so much more power! I would recommend keeping a stock of both since the light is great for frying while virgin Olive oil is great for cooking and sauteing and most everything else
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This is an interactive recipe card … After clicking on the purple button, you can click on all the 4 sections to see them ” pop up”. Feel free to print, share or turn the music mode to ” Mute “.
Check out my new DIY ( Do It Yourself) links on the sidebar.
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Hi there! I’m Sunithi, AKA Sue, a registered dietitian with a sweet tooth and a passion for eating healthy (quite a combo) currently working as an independent consultant in the DC Metro area. I’m also a blogger, health nut, nutrition geek who jogs to keep sane :)! I love to revamp recipes and add some ‘Nutrition Bytes’ to them. All my recipes are gluten free! I also blog on natural health and fitness! Visit often and drop me a note if you have any nutrition queries!
Great tips and twist on the heart-clogging butter chicken recipe, especially loved the nutrition label comparison 😀
Loved the recipe! am always looking for healthy Indian foodie recipes…Most have a lot of cream and fat 🙁 ! Did check in your recipe section and the Meats section is bare. Do post some more healthy meat ones when you have time !Thanks!
@ Rekha, sorry !! been crazy busy since I started the blog and the recipe cards … Please check back in a week … Will have atleast some Indian Meat recipes !! Do appreciate the interest !! If you have any particular ones you want email me ..I can revamp any recipe 🙂 !!
@ Beetlelovescupcakes… 🙂 !! I know you cook … if you want to submit some " healthy recipes" to my recipe section… will create a nutrition facts label and a recipe card with your name as creator for Free!! That cheesecake recipe may qualify!! P
Lol .. and here I was buying light olive oil thinking it was lower in calories. I obviously did not check labels ! How does the strong olive oil taste as a salad dressing … do you know ?? Am going to buy the strong kind when I shop next 🙂 ! Great tip !
loved the nutrition chart.. cool post!new to ur space n happy to follow u for more wonderful creations..do visit me when u get time ..http://comeletseat.blogspot.com
@ Penny, Virgin Olive oil does not do well with frying foods, so you may want to stock that too for when you want to deep fry etc.. For most other dishes, Virgin Olive oil should work great!!But to answer your Qeustion, The strong Olive oil tastes great as a salad dressing… watered down with lemon juice ( 2:1 ratio) as in 2 oil:1 lemon juice. Am glad you like homemade salad dressings P)!
Hi Mahjabeen, Glad you liked the food labels and you are very welcome to Follow :0) ! I will be checking your blog in a bit !!
That's a wonderful twist for a healthy version of this classic dish !
Thanks Gulmohar, You are such a gourmet cook and I enjoy all your recipes on "collaborative curry " !!
Thanks for this! Sounds great!
Try It and let me know how it goes 🙂 May need to Indian grocery shop a bit 🙂
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