Low FODMAP Diet Butter Chicken Recipe

Today we want to share a low fodmap recipe for a most well-known Indian dish – Butter Chicken

There are 3 steps to making the Butter Chicken:

1. Marinating and grilling the chicken,
2. Making the spiced tomato sauce,
3. Final cooking of the chicken in the sauce.

If you can, marinate your chicken overnight in the fridge and make the tomato sauce the day before so the flavours have time to develop.  Renuka’s recipe gives you the choice of marinating your chicken in either a mix of spices or a pre-prepared tandoori paste.  I have tried both and have found the spice mix to be quite subtle in flavour, whereas using a tandoori paste provided a fuller flavour.  Just be sure to check the label of a tandoori paste to make sure there is no onion or shallot and garlic if that concerns you.  The original recipe called for only 4 chicken thigh fillets but I found there was a generous amount of sauce so I adapted the recipe to use more chicken, increasing the marinade quantities to suit.

Low FodMap Butter Chicken Recipe

Adapted from Renuka Oakden’s recipe                              serves 6-8

I have added some suggestions that you will see below in red.  If you need to keep your dish dairy free, stick with the olive oil and coconut milk.  Otherwise you could add a little butter for flavour and use a lactose free cream or yoghurt in the final cooking.  If your supermarket doesn’t have all the spices then try to find an Indian or Asian grocer that does.

• 1 kg skinless chicken thighs fillets

Tandoori marinade mix:

• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder or Cayenne pepper
• 3 teaspoons coriander powder
• ½ teaspoon cumin powder
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon or cardamom
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (Or galic infused olive oil)
• 3 tablespoon lemon juice Or use 3 tablespoons paste

Sauce 

• 500g tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
• 2 mace or 1 teaspoon ground mace
• 5 cm fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 3 long green chillies, seeds and veins removed, chopped

Final cooking:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil or butter
• 1 teaspoon ginger, finely chopped
• 1 green chilli, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder
• 160ml can light coconut milk
• salt to taste
• 2 teaspoons fresh coriander leaves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons dried fenugreek leaves, optional

Low FodMap Butter Chicken Steps

Trim the chicken fillets of fat and cut into 5cm pieces.  Place the chicken into a bowl or plastic bag with the marinade mix or tandoori paste and mix well.  Leave the chicken to marinate for 2 hours or preferably overnight
Bake the chicken at 200°C or grill for 12 – 15 minutes until just cooked

For the sauce cut the tomatoes in half and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon, then roughly chop.  Heat the olive oil in a fry pan and add the tomatoes and other sauce ingredients, cooking until soft and pulpy.  Cool mixture then puree until smooth.  Pass the puree through a sieve and set aside.

For the final cooking, heat the olive oil in a large fry pan or pot.  Add the ginger and green chilli if using; sauté for 20 seconds.  Add the tomato puree, Kashmiri chilli powder, salt and cooked chicken.  Bring to a simmer and add coconut milk or lactose free cream or yoghurt, and fresh coriander and fenugreek if using.  Cook over low heat for 6-7 minutes.

Serve with basmati rice.