No-Butter Indian Butter Chicken

The first question that most of you may have is how can a dish not contain an ingredient mentioned in the title. The answer, I really don't need that many fat calories for a dish that really doesn't need that much fat. Butter is 100% fat. Each tablespoon of butter (one serving) contains 12 grams of fat. 7 of those grams are saturated fat which happens to be 35% of your daily requirement saturated fat. So any recipe that has the name butter in it is begging for a fat/caloric disaster. The evidence for this is clear in the original recipe for the sauce:

• 1 cup butter (for those of you hate math, that is 16 servings, 192 grams of fat and 112 grams of saturated fat)
• 1 onion
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 15 oz of Tomato Sauce
• 3 cups heavy cream (this adds 264 grams of fat, and 162 grams of saturated fat)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon garam masala

In grand total, that comes out to 456 grams of fat and 274 grams of saturated fat in 6 servings. This comes out to 76 grams of fat per serving with 45.6 grams of saturated fat per serving.  The daily recommended amount of fat is 65 total grams of fat and 20 grams of saturated fat. This recipe provides +100% of your daily fat intake and +200% of your daily saturated fat intake.

So why is fat so bad? The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiologists jointly issued practice guidelines in late 2013 for dietary fat intake. They based these recommendations on a meta-analysis published by the journal Circulation in November, 2013. Key recommendations include eating a diet with no more than 5-6% of calories from saturated fat because of its strong link to heightened cardiovascular disease. They also recommend avoiding trans fats for the same reason. The Cleveland Clinic, the nation’s top cardiac hospital for 15 years running, quotes the American Heart Association guideline of no more than 25-35% of calories from all types of fat. The Mayo Clinic suggests a diet with monounsaturated fats for both cardiovascular health and reduced incidence of Type-II diabetes. This is in line with the Mediterranean Diet, which is the only diet shown to truly reduce cardiovascular disease. That diet has approximately 9-10% of calories from saturated fat and is high in monounsaturated fatty acids such as omega threes. If you want more information/scientific proof/reasons to change your diet, visit these websites:
American Heart Association

Cleveland Clinic
Mayo Clinic

In light of my goal to create tasty foods with less that 30% fat to follow current health guidelines; I had a very hard task reducing the fat content while maintaining the flavor of the dish. As mentioned in the Perogie post, Fat-Free Half and Half is a great substitute in many situations. In this recipe, I used the Half and Half in place of the heavy cream, eliminating the fat in the recipe from the heavy cream. This leaves reducing the fat from the butter. Indian spices tend to be powerful, so I surmised that the butter flavor wasn't important to the dish, that it only added creaminess to the texture. Therefore I added only 1 tablespoon of lower fat margarine (it only had 7 grams of fat per serving) in order to saute the onion and garlic. In summation, I reduced that fat from 76 grams per serving to less than 2 grams of fat per serving in the sauce.

Here is the recipe!!

No-Butter Indian Butter Chicken:

Sauce:

• 1 Tablespoon Margarine
• 1 Onion Minced
• 1 Tablespoon Minced Garlic
• 15 oz Tomato Sauce
• 3 cups Fat-Free Half and Half
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 teaspoon tandoori masala

 Mince the onion finely. Melt the margarine in a large saucepan. Add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion is soft. Add the tomato sauce, fat-free Half-and-half and all the seasonings. Simmer on the stove for 30 minutes. The sauce should look something like this:

Chicken:

• 1 1/2 pound chicken (Any chicken works, chicken breasts will have the least amount of fat)
• 2 tablespoons tandoori masala

Heat the oven to 375 degrees.  While the sauce is simmering, take the chicken and place in a baking dish. Cover with the tandoori masala and bake in the oven until done. Shred the chicken and place in the simmering sauce. Stir and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve with rice. Note: Chicken is the most common meat used in this dish. However, you can use seafood in it as well if you want something even more healthy than chicken.

So here comes the final verdict. My goal was to reduce the fat content in the sauce to below 30% calories from fat. For a comparison, I am providing the original recipe nutritional facts with the nutritional facts from the lower fat option. The results are staggering.

Original Recipe:

My recipe:

Note the differences in the fat and calories between the two recipes. My recipe come out to 18.2% calories from fat compared to 94.5% in the original recipe. My wife and I made the low fat recipe and loved it! The final calorie count is as follows:

This is the final caloric tally with the chicken added. The percent calorie count comes out to 18.1% calories from fat, which is a stunning improvement from the original recipe. If you want to try a simple Indian food recipe that is low calorie, this is a great option!