Meals · Curries

Butter chicken

Name: Butter chicken
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 700 g chicken thigh, in chunks; 2/3 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt; 1 1/2 tsp turmeric; 2 tsp ground cumin; 1 onion yellow onions, finely chopped; 4 cloves garlic, minced; a thumb ginger, grated; 2 tsp ground coriander; 2 tsp paprika; 1 tsp red pepper flakes; 400 g crushed tomatoes; 3 tbsp butter; 1/2 cup heavy cream; 1 tsp salt; a handful fresh cilantro, chopped

Yogurt-marinated chicken in a spiced tomato sauce finished with butter and cream. One of the most cooked Indian dishes outside India, and a good demonstration of where a rich curry actually spends its calories — the swap on the cream line moves it further than anything else you could do.

Time: 50 min (20 prep + 30 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 519 kcal
Protein: 39 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

Marinade

700 g chicken thigh, in chunks700 g
2/3 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt150 g
1 1/2 tsp turmeric3 g
2 tsp ground cumin4 g

Sauce

1 onion yellow onions, finely chopped150 g
4 cloves garlic, minced12 g
a thumb ginger, grated20 g
2 tsp ground coriander4 g
2 tsp paprika5 g
1 tsp red pepper flakes2 g
400 g crushed tomatoes400 g
3 tbsp butter40 g
1/2 cup heavy cream120 g
1 tsp salt5 g

To serve

a handful fresh cilantro, chopped12 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Marinate the chicken in the yogurt, turmeric and cumin for at least 30 minutes — overnight if you can. The yogurt tenderises it and carries the spice into the meat.
Sear the chicken in a hot dry pan in batches until browned at the edges, then set aside. It does not need to be cooked through.
Melt the butter in the same pan and soften the onion, 8 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, coriander, paprika and pepper flakes for a minute, then the tomatoes and salt. Simmer 10 minutes.
Blend the sauce smooth if you want it restaurant-style, return the chicken and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in the cream off the heat and finish with cilantro.

Where do the calories live?

The butter and cream, almost entirely — the chicken and tomato are the cheap part. That's what makes the cream swap the single biggest lever here, and the picker shows exactly what it's worth.

Why this score

moderately filling

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

30% of kcal

73% water

8 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 2076 kcal goes into the pot, 1627 g of ingredients comes out as ~1350 g of food → 154 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 154
Protein: (30%); 12 g
Fat: (56%); 10 g
Carbohydrates: (13%); 5 g
of which sugar: 2 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 253 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More meals

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.