Butter Chicken For One from Serves You Right: Recipes REALLY for One.

A couple of months ago, I started a Substack subscription newsletter all about cooking for one. Serves You Right: Recipes REALLY for One is a weekly Substack newsletter devoted to the art of cooking for yourself. Every recipe is developed specifically for one person. No scaling recipes down. No week of leftovers. No complicated meal-prep plans. Just fresh, satisfying, right-sized meals and desserts so you can eat well, even when you’re the only one at the table. It’s a great resource for people starting out on their own, empty nesters, the occasional solo eater or those who find joy in the kitchen, or want to, but are daunted by dinner for one. Cooking at home with fresh ingredients is healthier, cheaper and infinitely more delicious. So I thought I would share a little peek at one of these single serve specialities. Click here to check out Serves You Right!

Butter chicken is comfort food to me, not because it is a childhood memory or family tradition, but because it is soothing and comforting, filling and warm, and above all flavorful. A dish of butter chicken makes me feel good. I didn’t grow up eating butter chicken – there wasn’t an Indian restaurant in Memphis until I was in my 20s (there was a Beard Award nominated French Indian fusion restaurant called Restaurant Raji) . The first butter chicken I encountered was in England, where it is a relatively ubiquitous dish on Indian restaurant menus. And I have to say, the name butter chicken just makes your mouth water – even if there is very little butter involved at all. In fact, I have done a little research and Butter Chicken was created at a restaurant in Delhi in the 50s as Murgh Makhani, as a way to repurpose leftover tandoori chicken. But from there, it has taken on a life of its own. And I think it is the perfect dish for a single eater, because it provides tons of flavor in a small serving.

I make no claims to any kind of authenticity in this dish, other than that it has the flavors of a classic butter chicken. When interpreting dishes that are not of my own background, I try to be respectful of the original. But for a single serve cook, it can be a little tricky if a recipe uses ingredients that one doesn’t normally have on hand. So I try to keep as true to an original as possible without expecting you to purchase spices or sauces that you may not find other ways to use, simply because you are not (yet) familiar with the cuisines that use them the most. This version of butter chicken makes use of ingredients that I think you will find very useful if to stock in your pantry on a regular basis. It has a great balance of spice and a lovely creaminess, with the chicken perfectly tender.