Peanut Butter Chicken Curry is a quick and easy Instant Pot meal you can have on the table in 30 minutes. Your family will love the creamy sauce and customize-able heat.
Need a curry in a hurry? Stop searching around for THE perfect basic chicken curry recipe, because you’ve found it! This recipe is the answer to your mid-week dinner dilemma. It’s quick, luxurious, and full of flavors that everyone loves.
Best of all, the ingredients are simple pantry essentials and most are easy to find in average grocery stores. Everyone should have one or two curry recipes up their sleeve for when that Indian cooking craving hits, like our Mulligatawny Soup.
We love Indian dishes in our home and homemade is so much better than take out! Plus the aroma of Indian cooking is amazing with all the wonderful spices. That right there entices you to enjoy it even more.
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Hello again, this is Bernice! I’m so excited to have developed this Instant Pot recipe for Noshing with the Nolands.
Cooking with the Instant Pot is always so satisfying because it creates such flavourful dishes in almost no time at all! I have several Instant Pot recipes on my blog, Dish ‘n’ the Kitchen, that I make for my family on a regular basis.
When the weather turns cold, curries are one of my favorite dishes to warm up with. There’s a whole world of curries to explore, from Japanese Chicken Curry to Thai Massaman Beef Coconut Curry. Red curries, green and more!
What is Peanut Butter Chicken Curry?
For today, I want to focus on an Indian-style curry. The ingredients are all similar to other curries, but the main difference is the presence of tomatoes in Indian curries, as well as a very specific mix of spices.
This rich, mildly spiced curry is slightly similar to the Pasanda Curry in that it contains coconut and nuts. Since it also contains tomatoes, it cannot be mistaken for this white curry found in Northern India.
Instead of a tomato-free rich sauce made of coconut and almonds (it’s a white curry), I have used coconut, peanut butter, and tomato sauce.
What Are the Ingredients in Peanut Butter Chicken Curry?
The ingredients in this recipe are quite simple. Let’s start with the major flavor enhancers – spices and aromatics. The spices in this recipe are very basic. All you’ll need is cinnamon and a few tablespoons of garam masala.
Garam masala is a spice blend made of a few common spices most often used in curries. It usually includes black pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, and coriander in varying amounts. You can buy it pre-mixed or blend the spices on your own using this recipe.
After the spices, the next most important ingredients are the aromatics. These include onions, garlic, ginger, and sometimes chilis. Of course, salt and pepper are essential to any savory dish, just to taste works for this one.
The body of the recipe is then made, adding chicken, coconut cream or coconut milk, stock, peanut butter, and lastly tomato passata which is tomato sauce.
Lastly, let’s not forget the ‘finishing’ flavors! Fresh roasted peanuts, cilantro, sliced green onion, a twist of lime juice, or a splash of fish sauce are all delicious ways to finish this dish. This is often where personal preference comes into play….go ahead and make this curry yours!
How to Adjust the Heat of a Peanut Butter Chicken Curry
As is, this Indian staple can be best described as a ‘beginner curry’. It’s slightly sweet with just a tiny amount of heat from the cayenne pepper and whole Thai red chilis.
If you’d like to spice this dish up a bit, start by slicing up the chilis. Want more? Leave the chili seeds in too. How about MORE? Add dried chili flakes, up the amount of cayenne pepper, or just add in some Sriracha. That’ll do it.
Of course, if you prefer no heat at all, you are welcome to omit the original amount of cayenne pepper and the Thai red chilis.
That is the beauty of recipes like this, you make them to your liking. And if one person likes more heat they are welcome to that bottle of hot sauce in the fridge. That is how we roll here too!!
How to Cook Peanut Butter Chicken in the Instant Pot
The beauty of this recipe is that once the aromatics and spices are sautéed, the rest is just ‘dump and go’. Use the manual function on your Instant Pot to set the pressure to ‘high’ and then set the timer to ten minutes. Don’t forget to set the valve to ‘seal’ or it won’t come to pressure.
Once the chicken and peanut butter sauce have been cooking at high pressure for ten minutes, allow it to naturally depressurize for another ten minutes before opening the lid.
You’ll be amazed and delighted at how much flavor this recipe has with just a short time cooking in the pressure cooker. In fact, pressure cooking is a very common method within Indian households.
So, the secret is out! Want a delicious soul-warming curry in record time? The pressure cooker is where it’s at!
Serve with rice (basmati is nice) and you will love this delicious dish, garnished with fresh cilantro and roasted peanuts. Don’t like cilantro, leave it out! We are all lucky here to love it and it adds so much flavor to the dish as a quick garnish. We also love to have naan bread for dunking!! Don’t you?
I adore a meal like that as it is fancy enough for company and easy enough for every day! Grab your pressure cooker or instant pot and enjoy this today!
Also here on Noshing with The Nolands is an amazing Healthy Slow Cooker Butter Chicken that has been one of our most popular recipes. It is also extremely easy to make and cooks away slowly giving you tons of flavor and perfectly tender chicken. Enjoy!!
Pin it HERE!
Pin it HERE!
Peanut Butter Chicken Curry (Instant Pot) Recipe
Peanut Butter Chicken Curry (Instant Pot)
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 8 skinless boneless chicken thighs cut into chunks
- 1/2 onion; slivered
- 1 1/2 tbsp fresh ginger; minced or grated
- 2 cloves garlic; minced
- 2 red chilis; sliced lengthwise de-seed to reduce heat level
- 2 tbsp garam masala
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper; optional
- 200 ml 1/2 can coconut cream (see note #1)
- 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
- 250 ml tomato passata
- 1/2 cup water or chicken stock
- salt and pepper; to taste
- 1/2 small bunch cilantro; leaves picked
- roasted peanuts; as garnish
- cooked basmati rice; to serve
Instructions
- Stir fry the onion and ginger for one minute in the Instant Pot using sauté function. Add garlic, chili and sauté for another minute. Scraping constantly.
- Add the garam masala, cinnamon, and cayenne (if using) sauté for 1 min more.
- Stir in the coconut cream and scrape the bottom of the pot as the cream melts. Add in peanut butter, tomato passata, and water (or stock). Bring to a simmer.
- Add the chicken to the Instant Pot and secure the lid.
- Cook for 10 minutes on high pressure until the sauce thickens and the chicken is cooked through.
- Allow to de-pressurize naturally for another 10 minutes.
- Serve over basmati rice, garnished with the roasted peanuts and cilantro.
Comments & Reviews
Jill says
Oh My Goodness! I made this for dinner last night and were blown away by how good it is. I used bone-in thighs and upped the cooking time to 12 min and used about 1 Tbsp of Thai red curry paste instead of the red chilis becuase that’s what I had on hand. Now I’m looking forward to left overs tonight.
keikilani says
I love curry! It’s been too long since it’s been on our weekly menu. Adding it to this weeks menu for sure.
Eileen M Loya says
Interesting recipe. I have not tried curry with peanut butter before, but this dish you featured looks really good. I will add this to our menu plan. As son as I have all the ingredients I need, I will make this for the family.
Ruth I says
I love curry so much so I am excited to try this recipe. The dish looks so delicious!
Romy says
I love a good killer curry recipe, and I’ve never done one with peanut butter before. Thanks for sharing!
Toni says
A huge hit at my house! So good!
Angie Agerter says
Yum! I love that you are using the instant pot for it and it sounds so darn good. We are going to have to try this ourselves sometime soon. We’ll see if I like the peanut butter curry – it’s a hit or miss if I like peanut butter in things, so we shall see!
Heather says
It’s been years since I had a good curry. I am going to make this one this weekend!
Tara Pittman says
My husband loves curry so this is a soup for him. I might just have to make this for dinner
Amy Desrosiers says
Yum, this sounds fantastic! I love peanut butter chicken and would love to try this combo!