Lightened up Butter Chicken: 265cal/serving

mathandcats

Lightened up Butter Chicken (adapted from Slow Cooker Butter Chicken via Slender Kitchen)

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs chicken breast
• 1 tsp canola oil
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 inch ginger, minced (or around 10g of ginger paste from a tube)
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp hot chili powder (adjust to your tastes, it also depends on the variety you choose)
• 1/4 tsp tumeric
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt (you may want less, the tomatoes I used had no salt added)
• pinch black pepper
• 1 cup tomato sauce (we used strained tomatoes)
• 1/4 cup fat free plain greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup half and half (10%) or coffee (18%) cream
• 1/2-3/4 cup skim milk

Directions

1. Cook chicken breasts as desired. (I would suggest baking in a covered casserole dish at 325F until cooked through, about 1-1.5 hours. Precooked chicken would work great too, but you might want to heat it up a bit before baking in the final step.) Drain off the water, transfer to cutting board, and cube the chicken. Transfer cubes into a casserole dish (9 x 13" should work, basically just need one that will hold everything.)
2. In a medium sauce pan, heat the oil over medium-low heat and saute shallot, garlic, and onion until soft.
3. Add butter, ginger, spices, and continue cooking for a few minutes.
4. Add tomatoes and lemon juice and simmer 5-10 minutes.
5. In a blender, combine yogurt, cream, milk and the sauce. Blend thoroughly. [You may wish to hold back the milk and adjust quantities until it is the desired consistency.]
6. Pour sauce over chicken, and bake, covered, until heated through (about 20-30 minutes).

Makes around 6 servings of approximately 3/4 cup each. Exact nutrition facts depends on your choice of ingredients, but for the batch I just made, it was:
Calories: 265 / Fat: 9g / Protein: 38g / Carbs: 7g.

CDN_Diesel

Love Indian food. I have to try this!

mathandcats

I made this again today, and tweaked the seasonings a bit. I felt like it wasn't quite right last time, so I looked at several different butter chicken recipes for inspiration. Here's what I changed:

• 1 tbsp lemon juice instead of 2 tsp
• 1.5 tbsp garam masala instead of 2 tsp
• left out the chili powder because I didn't want any heat this time
• used a whole onion
• used 3/4 tsp salt
• the strained tomatoes I used this time were Mutti brand and had basil in them
• I added 1.5 tsp dried, ground fenugreek leaves (I think this is the most important change!)

I thought it was greatly improved this way. I think the fenugreek is what was missing last time, but a bit more salt helped as well.