For The Most Flavorful Butter Chicken, Always Do This The Day Before Serving

Butter chicken is among the very best South Asian dishes, and while it's one of our go-to orders when visiting Indian restaurants, you might find yourself wanting to replicate it at home. And while it's on our list of favorite chicken recipes to make for dinner, butter chicken can be especially difficult if you don't have experience cooking the dish. Timing matters, particularly when you make the sauce. 

Butter chicken sauce or gravy — traditionally made with heavy cream or yogurt, tomatoes or tomato paste, oil, citrus juice, a bevy of special herbs and spices, peppers, onions and, of course, butter — is arguably better when made the day before, says Varun Inamdar, a restaurateur and chef who owns 27 Degrees West, Anokhi Bar & Grill, and New Light Sopore. "It becomes noticeably creamier, rounder, and deeper," notes Inamdar.

Cooking butter chicken the day before you use it, chilling it overnight, and then reheating the following day leads to the best possible version of the dish, as it allows each of the sauce's many ingredients to become more vibrant and delicious. While there are a few different ways to do this, Inamdar suggests using low heat, adding a bit of water, and then ideally adding around 20% of the cream called for in the recipe at this later point, rather than when you cook the sauce for the first time.

While some may hesitate to buy into the idea that making any food a day early is ideal — mainly due to the desire for the "freshest" food possible — butter chicken sauce benefits from being chilled overnight in far too many ways to avoid the technique. Varun Inamdar explains how chilling and reheating elevates the dish, first pointing to fat crystallization and how it impacts the sauce. "Butter and cream fats firm up when chilled, tightening the emulsion," he details. "When reheated gently, they melt more evenly with a silkier mouthfeel."

The chef also added that this chilling process gives the tomatoes and the many great spices that are integral to butter chicken more time to meld together and bloom, which is a game-changer for such a spice-centric dish. "Kashmiri chili, garam masala, kasuri methi, and tomato acids settle and harmonize, losing sharp edges," notes Inamdar, adding, "Natural sugars in tomato purée balance out overnight, reducing tang."

While it's very important to make the sauce a day early, you should never add the chicken to it when doing so. Bathing your meat in a yogurt base offers its own set of benefits, but putting the two halves of the recipe together early can be highly detrimental. This, according to Chef Inamdar, is because chicken has the tendency to thin your sauce while simultaneously stripping the dish of both flavor and texture.