If you’re craving dairy-free Indian food but just don’t know where to start, this incredible tofu butter chicken dish is the perfect meal to start cooking. This recipe is super quick and easy to make and packed full of all your favorite vegan Indian curry flavors. It features wonderfully baked Indian tofu that tastes just like butter chicken.
Even the fussiest meat-eaters are sure to love this dish!
What is butter chicken?
Butter chicken is one of the most popular Indian curry dishes you can buy in the Western world. It doesn’t pack as much heat as other Indian dishes, with a classic, mildly spiced, creamy tomato sauce packed full of flavor without melting your tongue!
Traditional butter chicken is made with – you guessed it! – chicken and dairy-cream, but as a vegan, I’ve spent a lot of time perfecting my vegan butter chicken sauce to create a dish with all the delicious flavors and creaminess of standard butter chicken, but without the meat or dairy.
To substitute the meat in this vegan butter chicken, tofu is really the only way to go. This recipe uses a unique tofu preparation method to ensure the perfect amount of chewiness to substitute for chicken. Once it’s soaked in the sauce, this butter tofu recipe is almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
I absolutely love experimenting with tofu! Indian recipes, in particular, are always great as there’s plenty of sauce and flavor for the tofu to absorb. I know you’ll love this vegan butter tofu dish as much as I do!
Vegan Butter Chicken Recipe
This delicious tofu butter masala recipe is made from 100% meat-and-dairy-free ingredients to create a healthy butter chicken dish that even the most hardcore carnivores won’t be able to get enough of.
Storing & reheating leftovers
If you don’t want to eat all the vegan butter chicken at once or if you end up with leftovers (not a problem in our household as everyone always goes up for seconds!), store the Indian tofu curry in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Your leftovers will last for about 3-4 days before taking a turn for the worse.
Rice typically doesn’t reheat well, so I’d recommend simply storing the vegan butter chicken and cooking up some more fresh rice for your second helping.
Store this dish in a freezer-safe container, and your curry should last up to 2 months — Thaw for 12 hours in the fridge before cooking your frozen vegan butter chicken. Again, the rice doesn’t reheat well, so we also don’t recommend you freeze it.
When you’re ready to enjoy, simply reheat your vegan butter chicken in the microwave or a pan on the stove. Check the curry is warm all the way through before serving. The sauce may thicken in the cold, so you can add a little water to thin it down when reheating.
Our final notes
I absolutely love experimenting with vegan Indian food, and I think this vegan butter chicken dish might be the tastiest thing I’ve cooked in a long time! If you don’t want to mess with pressing the tofu by hand, use this tofu press to make life so much easier.
Light coconut milk is also tasty in this dish but won’t provide such a rich and creamy sauce.
If you prefer not to use fats or oil in the recipe, you can still make this delicious “butter” tofu recipe without olive oil or butter. Simply sauté the onions in water and don’t add the fats.
This dish is sure to impress at any gathering and is certainly easy enough to create a delicious and healthy midweek dinner. Even the kids love this delicious vegan butter chicken recipe, and many of my carnivore friends can’t get enough of it!
Find more ideas for family meals on ParentsLifestyleDaily.
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