Steal This Double Marination Trick For The Best Butter Chicken

Butter chicken isn't just chicken fried in butter. Instead, the kind of butter chicken that you might see on an Indian restaurant menu is a vibrant, flavorful dish of Punjabi origin with a sauce made from butter, cream, tomatoes, and spices. It's quite similar to the U.K. favorite, tikka masala, only milder and with more dairy. There are many different recipes and techniques for making butter chicken, but one tip, in particular, will really elevate the dish: marinating it twice. This is the recommendation of Varun Inamdar, a chef-turned-restaurateur who owns eateries in India, Singapore, and China (27 Degrees West, New Light Sopore, and Anokhi Bar & Grill, respectively).

Inamdar told The Takeout that the double marinade technique "decouples science from flavor." What he means by this is that the first marinade does all of the science-y, heavy-lifting stuff by changing the chicken's protein structure to make the meat more tender. The second marinade is the fun, flavorful one that brings the spice.

For the first marinade, Varun Inamdar typically goes with a yogurt-based soak, since the dairy is mildly acidic and has enzymes that tenderize meat without making it mushy. He also adds a little bit of salt, plus some ginger juice, and every so often, he'll even stir in a little raw papaya paste. The timing for this first marinade is anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes, but he advised not going over an hour to avoid a chalky texture.

The second marinade is also yogurt-based, but involves additional flavorings such as Kashmiri chiles (these have a similar heat level to anchos), garam masala, mustard oil, melted butter, and a seasoning known as kasuri methi, which consists of dried fenugreek leaves. (Fenugreek seeds, dried mint, and even peppermint tea can all be used as substitutes if you can't find it.) Inamdar recommends keeping the chicken in this mixture for at least four hours, but feels overnight is even better. As he explained, "Fat carries spice and the time to marinate allows surface penetration without protein damage."

After marinating the chicken twice, you want to make sure to preserve the flavor by cooking it correctly. Varun Inamdar generously shared a few more tips with us, one of which is to cook the chicken separately before adding it to the sauce. Get a good sear on it, too — as per Inamdar, "[A] slight char is the browning counterbalance to creamy sauce and brings in character." Even so, you don't want the inside to be cooked all the way through. He recommends undercooking the chicken by about 10% (to an internal temperature of around 150 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the USDA-recommended 165) before adding it to the sauce. The meat will continue cooking in the sauce and be brought up to a safe temperature. He also advised letting it rest for three to four minutes before introducing it to that sauce.

"Add chicken when [the] sauce is hot, stable, and fully emulsified — just before service, or max eight to 10 minutes prior, as the chicken absorbs flavor without leaking juices," he said. "Sauce thickens naturally. Texture remains plush, not stringy, and the final dish tastes layered, not stewed." He cautioned against overcrowding the pan with chicken and letting the meat boil in the sauce, since doing so might alter the marinade's flavor. It's mostly cooked already, so a gentle simmer will soon get it up to temperature without losing any of that twice-marinated taste.