I was standing at a supermarket check-out when a Canadian Living magazine featuring Slow Cooker recipes caught my eye.  As I picked up the magazine and started flipping through it, a Butter Chicken Recipe peaked my interest.  Then the dilemma set in; do I need to purchase another cooking magazine, or do I try to find a similar recipe on-line?  My pocketbook won the internal debate, and when I arrived home, I started searching for a Slow Cooker Butter Chicken recipe on the internet.

I was more than pleasantly surprised when I came across the actual Canadian Living recipe that I had seen earlier.  This truly was my lucky day!

Jamie and I don’t eat a lot of Indian food.  Not because we don’t like it, but it just isn’t something that we cook on a regular basis.  A few months ago I made a Madras Beef Curry.  Now for making that dish, I had purchased a Madras Curry paste from the grocery store, so I had quite a bit of that kicking around in the fridge, so I decided to incorporate this into the Butter Chicken recipe. 🙂

When looking through the ingredient list I decided to do a little bit of improvising.  I didn’t have coriander or turmeric but I did have a dry medium curry powder.  Since I was making a curry dish, I decided to substitute all the spices I didn’t have in the pantry for an equal amount of medium curry powder.  It seemed to work out alright, as dinner was really good!

The next time we make this (we liked it so much that I am already talking about making it again :)) I am actually going to boil down the sauce a bit, so that it makes a sauce for a pulled Butter Chicken.  Serve that over some dinner rolls, and you have an amazing week-night dinner!

We served our version of Slow Cooker Butter Chicken over mashed cauliflower with a mixed green salad.  It was delicious!  Serve that with a glass of your favourite white wine, and you have the perfect meal to start your weekend!

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Adapted from:

Canadian Living – Slow Cooker Butter Chicken
Amanda Barnier & Canadian Living Test Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 2 diced onions
• 3 cloves garlic – minced
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tbsp packed brown sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp medium curry powder
• 2 tsp chili powder
• pinch red chili flakes
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 can diced tomatoes (28 oz can)
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/4 cup almond butter
• 1 tbsp Madras curry paste
• 3 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs, quartered
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt

Directions:

1. In slow cooker, combine onions, garlic, butter, ginger, brown sugar, chili powder, chili flakes, curry powder, salt, pepper and tomatoes.
2. Whisk broth with almond butter and curry paste; pour into slow cooker.
3. Cover and cook on low for 5 hours (up to 8 hours).
4. With immersion blender, purée sauce until smooth.  Add chicken to slow cooker and cook, covered on high until juices run clear when chicken is pierced, 40-50 minutes.
5. Stir in yogurt & serve.