Indian food is my favorite type of cuisine, but taking my family of four out to eat can get pretty expensive. So, like many people trying to save money by cooking at home, I decided to try making one of my favorite meals in my kitchen.
Many Indian dishes I saw required lengthy cooking times and long lists of ingredients. So, when I came across Gordon Ramsay’s “curry in a hurry” recipe for butter chicken, I knew I had to try it.
The YouTube video shows the chef making the dish in under 15 minutes, which sounded pretty convenient.
Still, I was skeptical about the tight estimate, and I wasn’t alone — the video, which has over 4 million views, is flooded with comments stating the dish took longer to make than promised.
Here’s how it went when I tried it for myself.
I started by marinating the chicken overnight.
Ramsay’s curry in a hurry has two separate ingredient lists: one for the chicken marinade and another for the curry sauce.
I started by cubing and coating about 1 ½ pounds of chicken breast in plain yogurt, olive oil, salt, turmeric, cumin, coriander, garam masala, and black and cayenne pepper.
Following the advice in the video, I let the yogurt-based marinade sink into the chicken overnight. Notably, this step wasn’t included in the video’s 15-minute timeline.
After 12 hours, the chicken looked great.
I let the chicken marinate for about 12 hours, allowing the spices to really sink in and coat the meat. When I checked on it, I noticed the marinade had turned the meat yellow, and it smelled deliciously like curry.
I also think plain yogurt added a tangy note and helped tenderize the meat.
When it was time to start cooking, I gathered the rest of the ingredients.
When it was time to cook the full dish, I gathered my curry ingredients: olive oil (the original recipe calls for grapeseed oil, but I used what I had at home), red onion, ginger, Fresno chile, butter, cilantro, heavy cream, tomato sauce, and lemon.
I also used an assortment of spices, including cardamom pods, cloves, garam masala, turmeric, cumin, and cayenne pepper.
One thing to note is that the recipe involved lots of chopping. From cubing the chicken to slicing the onion, ginger, chile pepper, and garlic, chopping the ingredients alone took about 20 minutes.
I cooked the chicken and curry ingredients in separate pans.
I thought Ramsay’s recipe created a bit of a mess. I needed to use two pans — one for cooking the cubed chicken and the other for sautéeing the curry ingredients — and allow plenty of time for cleanup after cooking.
I cooked the chicken breast in one pan and sautéed the curry ingredients in the other.
The spices made my kitchen smell amazing.
Next, I cooked the onions until caramelized and added the cardamom pods, cloves, garlic, ginger, and Fresno chile.
Once everything had cooked through, I added butter, followed by cilantro, garam masala, turmeric, cumin, and cayenne pepper.
A highlight of making this recipe was how incredible my kitchen smelled from cooking fragrant chile peppers, spices, and garlic.
The mixture started to look more like butter chicken when I added tomato sauce.
Once the mixture had become paste-like, I added the tomato sauce, heavy cream, and lemon juice.
At this point, I noticed my Indian-food-loving family hanging out in the kitchen and trying to get a peek at what I was cooking. Sadly for them, there was more work to be done.
Things got messy when I puréed the curry in a blender.
If I thought cooking in multiple pans made for a messy kitchen, that was nothing compared to pouring the hot curry mixture into my blender.
I successfully dumped the orange-red mixture into the appliance and puréed it into a lump-free curry sauce, though there were a few spills and drips along the way.
After straining the curry, it was time to combine the sauce and the chicken.
Ramsay suggested pouring the puréed sauce through a strainer when adding it into the pan with the chicken, so I pulled out my trusty sieve and went to work.
There weren’t many leftover seeds or spices, so, in the future, I may skip this step to save time.
Once the sauce was strained, combining the mixture with the cooked chicken was easy. I stirred the mixture and added more butter, cilantro, and lemon zest to finish.
I served the butter chicken with naan and rice.
I kept things simple with the side dishes I served. I microwaved precooked basmati rice and heated store-bought naan in my air fryer so my family could soak up the delicious curry sauce.
If I make this dish again, I’d probably cook my own rice and grab store-bought samosas to serve along with the naan.
Even though the process was time-consuming, Ramsay’s recipe was delicious.
When I tasted the finished dish, all the mess was worth it. Ramsay’s curry sauce tasted as good as ones I’ve had at Indian restaurants — and I felt proud knowing I’d made it home.
Though Ramsay sped through the cooking process in 15 minutes on camera, it took me about an hour to chop the ingredients, cook everything, blend the curry sauce, and combine the two pans into one dish.
That said, I think I could cook this dish more quickly over time as I make it more and commit steps of the recipe to memory.
Plus, I can’t deny that the end result was beautiful and tasted restaurant-quality. The chicken’s flavor was buttery and tomatoey, seasoned perfectly with spices like garam masala and turmeric. My family was thrilled with the dish’s creaminess and flavors.
Overall, this flavorful recipe can definitely be made a bit faster, and I can’t wait to try it again soon.
This story was originally published on July 24, 2024, and most recently updated on May 29, 2026.
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