How Many Calories Are in Butter Chicken?

July 28, 2026 · 6 min read

Butter chicken (murgh makhani) is honest about what it is: chicken in a butter-and-cream tomato gravy. Unlike dishes where the calorie source is hidden, here it's exactly what the name says — and that gravy is doing almost all of the nutritional work.

Standard serving (chicken + gravy, no sides)

On its own, this is actually a fairly reasonable, high-protein, low-carb dish — the problem is that butter chicken almost never arrives alone.

What you order it with matters more than the curry itself

Rice and naan together is a common combination that can add 400–500 calories on top of the curry itself — more than the butter chicken it's meant to accompany.

Where the gravy's calories come from

• Butter: the namesake ingredient, typically 2–3 tbsp per serving of gravy
• Heavy cream: the second major fat source, added to smooth the tomato base
• Cashew paste (in richer versions): some restaurants thicken with ground cashews instead of or alongside cream — comparable calorie density
• Chicken: usually thigh meat, marinated and grilled before going into the gravy — the leanest part of the dish

Restaurant vs. homemade

Restaurant kitchens tend to use more butter and cream than a home recipe would, both for flavor and shelf-stability of the gravy — that's part of why restaurant butter chicken often lands at the higher end of the 450–550 kcal range, or above it. A homemade version made with less butter, light cream, or a yogurt-based gravy can come in closer to 300–380 kcal for the same portion of chicken.

Common questions

Is butter chicken the same as chicken tikka masala? They're close cousins, not the same dish. Butter chicken's gravy is built on butter, tomato, and cream; tikka masala usually adds more spice and sometimes a thinner, more tomato-forward sauce. Calorie counts are similar, so the estimates above are a reasonable stand-in for either.

Is it very spicy? Not usually — butter chicken is one of the milder curries on a typical menu, since the cream and butter mellow the spice level. That doesn't change the calorie count either way.

How Bao handles it

Bao recognizes butter chicken from a photo, estimates the gravy-to-chicken ratio, and separately tracks any rice or naan on the same plate — instead of collapsing an entire meal into one generic "Indian curry" estimate.