Butter Chicken vs. Chicken Tikka Masala: What Is the Difference?
Ask any server at The Imperial Tandoor which two dishes guests compare most often, and the answer is always the same: butter chicken or chicken tikka masala. They arrive at the table looking like cousins — rich, red-orange, creamy, served with naan — and they are both built on chicken from our clay tandoor. But they are not the same dish, and once you know the difference, you will never order blind again.
Here is the short version, settled once and for all.
Butter Chicken: the Delhi classic
Butter chicken — murgh makhani — was born in Delhi in the 1950s, when tandoor-cooked chicken was folded into a silky tomato, butter and cream sauce so none of it would go to waste. It is the gentler of the two: smooth, mildly spiced, and built around the sauce itself. The chicken is tender, the tomato is sweet rather than sharp, and the butter and cream do the talking.
Our Butter Chicken follows that Delhi original. Tender chicken in our signature creamy tomato-butter sauce, cooked in our gas-powered clay tandoor first, then folded into the makhani sauce. It is gluten-friendly, and it is the dish to order when you want comfort in a bowl. If you like a little more fire with the same soul, our Delhi-Style Butter Chicken is a spicier, less creamy interpretation of the classic.
Chicken Tikka Masala: the bolder cousin
Chicken tikka masala starts in the same place — chicken tikka, marinated in yogurt and spices and charred in the tandoor — but the sauce takes a different road. It is bolder and more heavily spiced, with roasted peppers in the mix and a tomato curry that leans savoury and warm rather than sweet and silky. The tikka keeps its charred edges, so every bite has a little smoke in it.
Our Chicken Tikka Masala is roasted chicken and peppers in a bold, spiced tomato curry. It is also gluten-friendly. Where butter chicken soothes, tikka masala wakes you up.
The difference, side by side
- The sauce: Butter chicken is a smooth tomato-butter-cream makhani sauce. Tikka masala is a bolder, spiced tomato curry.
- The heat: Butter chicken is mild and mellow. Tikka masala carries more warmth and spice.
- The chicken: Butter chicken uses tender tandoor chicken folded into the sauce. Tikka masala uses char-grilled tikka with roasted peppers, so the smoky edges stay in the foreground.
- The mood: Butter chicken is comfort. Tikka masala is drama.
Both are $21.45 on our food menu, and both are gluten-friendly. The price is the same, so the choice is purely about what you are in the mood for.
How to order either one
Both dishes love the same company: warm garlic naan for scooping, steamed basmati rice to catch the sauce, and a cool raita if you want to tame the heat. And the heat is yours to set — ask your server and we will adjust it to your taste.
If you are ordering for the table, order one of each. It is the fastest way to settle the debate for yourself, and it gives everyone at the table a second dish to reach for.
The verdict
Both dishes earn their place on the menu, and we would not serve either one if we did not believe in it. But if you ask us to pick — and our servers get asked every week — the verdict is our tandoor-fired butter chicken. It is the dish that shows everything our kitchen does best: chicken from a real clay tandoor, a sauce built slowly from tomato, butter and cream, and a recipe that has not needed changing since Delhi in the 1950s. Tikka masala brings the drama. Butter chicken brings the restaurant.
Come and taste the difference in our elegant setting, where culinary excellence is the standard we set for every plate.
Visit The Imperial Tandoor
554 Lansdowne St W, Peterborough, ON K9J 8J7
Reserve your table or call +1 705-874-5111
Ordering in? Order on our website and get 10% off takeout and delivery, applied automatically at checkout.
www.imperialtandoor.com