It started with a TikTok recipe my wife sent me for easy slow cooker butter chicken.
I wanted to make it. I really did. But I didn't have any chicken breast. The recipe didn't specifically call for breast. In fact, it said thighs. But I don't like to waste chicken thigh for a dish that's primarily a vehicle for sauce and not protein.
Thighs, in my opinion, are for grilling.
For things like shawarma, for marinating and enjoying that perfectly juicy, flavorful texture that's been infused with care.
Definitely not to sit in what's basically tomato-cumin-coriander-soup cream soup.
I had a vision—and it was breast meat or bust.
So I ordered chicken breast with the groceries, feeling like I’d solved a problem I invented.
What arrived? Chicken thighs.
Looking back, I think the universe was trying to tell me something. “You’re the guy who says ‘good enough is the goal,’ own up, motherfucker.”
But I couldn’t do it. Not yet. I have principles.
Principles that say chicken thighs are for direct contact with your mouth—
crispy edges, Maillard reaction, that perfect juicy-funky payoff.
Definitely not for floating in a tomato-curry-slurry.
I'm not even a breast fan. In most instances, I can take them or leave them - they don't really do much for me, and it felt like thighs in butter chicken sauce would be giving up on me, on us.
So I bagged the thighs up, tossed them in the freezer like they'd both personally insulted me and made a promise to me they intended to keep, and I was holding them to it.
When the chicken breast finally arrived in my grocery order the following week, I did the only rational thing:
I put them into ziplocks and hid them in the freezer like a raccoon hiding snacks for winter. And then immediately forgot about them.
The butter chicken dream was dead. For now.
Cut to this morning when around 11am my wife sends me a funny video of Seth Meyers and Paul Rudd getting day drunk.
And there it is, the butter chicken recipe, still sitting in my TikTok inbox.
Like I'd forgotten about it.
I hadn't. I'd been ignoring it.
Okay, I forgot about it, but this isn't about that.
I say to myself, “Braeden, it’s early enough. You’ve got the time to get it ready, dump it all in a crockpot, and cruise through dinner.”
So, it’s off to the freezer to find the chicken breast I’d stashed like the head of a hitchhiker who asked one too many questions.
Frozen solid.
Judging me.
And in that moment, I think:
“I kinda feel like chicken thighs, actually.”
But I also feel guilty—guilty for delaying this meal for two full weeks just to hold out for the right cut—so I grab a single breast as well and carry it to the kitchen with my frozen meat cards™.
I fill a bowl with water for rapid defrosting and tell myself I’ll go do something productive for twenty minutes—you know, instead of just scrolling my phone.
Which, of course, means I get sidetracked into making cartoons for another post about storing ground beef—and the next thing I know, it's two hours later, and the time for slow cooking is long since past. But I can solve this - I've got a fast cooker.
Aka the Instant Pot.
Side note: During the 2-hour defrosting detour, I made a series of surprisingly insightful cartoons about storing ground beef. Were they necessary? No. Were they hilarious and emotionally healing? Yes. Let me live.
I gather my ingredients, slice and dice the chicken, feeling like a real adult.
Then I go to add the garam masala.
The recipe calls for 1.5 teaspoons, but I've decided to double the recipe, so 3 tablespoons.
Hold on...that math doesn’t check out.
But it’s already in the bowl.
All 3 tablespoons.
"No worries", I lie to myself, "honestly, it’s probably for the best."
Honestly.
I’ve had this bag of garam masala since my oldest son was born.
He's 8... the flavor’s probably 80% nostalgia and dust by this point. Extra “depth", I'll call it.
Alright. Yogurt. Chili powder.
Chili powder—I’m out.
Cayenne? Sure. “Some” cayenne will work.
Tomato Paste.
Out of that too... ahh well I'll just run out and grab some while everything's marinating. The store's just down the road.
Next, a large block of frozen garlic—because I’m smart and made garlic paste in advance and froze it.
Almonds? Stale as hell. I'll never notice the difference and body else will. The cognitive dissonance here is loud.
Cumin, fresh ginger, salt... and two tomatoes.
Perfect. So that’s basically 3/4 of a can of canned tomatoes, right? Right?
Toss everything into the food processor.
Hit "on".
That’s when the garlic strikes.
The frozen garlic block lodges itself onto the blade,
and suddenly the machine starts thumping and tilting like it's about to achieve liftoff.
I’m getting flashbacks to ENG 248 – Vibrations,
where the equations were so long you’d need both sides of a Costco hot dog to write them down.
And while I’m reliving physics-based trauma regarding unbalanced loads, yogurt-masala is jetting out the feed tube like Peter fucking North.
It’s everywhere.
On the counter.
On me.
I kill the power and open the top - which is dripping all over the counter - pull the frozen garlic chunk off the blade, snap it in half and throw it back in, now deserving of its imminent demise.
Finally it smooths out and I'm standing there mopping up marinade and wondering how many more steps there are in this 'easy' recipe.
Now:
Dump the marinade onto the chicken. Let it absorb.
Take a breath.
Holy fuck it’s 3:30.
I’ve gotta pick up the kids.
Also, the car needs gas.
Also, I still need to buy tomato paste.
Looks like this thing is going into the Instant Pot unsupervised.
Grab half an onion.
Chop it like a Chinese chef—wackawackawacka—surprising myself at the precision and speed I'm working at, while the ghost of my missing fingertip—severed in a previous onion incident—whispers, “don’t do this again.”
But I don’t listen.
I’ve got a schedule to keep.
Butter in the pot. Sauté.
The house begins to smell like an adult who knows what they’re doing is cooking right now.
Dump in the chicken and marinade, press the ‘Poultry’ button and lock the valve.
I say a quick prayer to Vikram Vij —both for his blessings and forgiveness—run out the door, and get in the car.
Wallet.
“At least I remembered it before I left!” I console myself while running back inside.
I run back out, and I’m off to collect the kids, some tomato paste, and ultimately… success.
I’m going to skip the part where I bribe the kids with MrBeast videos in the parking lot so I can run into the store solo—
the weather’s cool, and I’m not being a neglectful parent, just efficient.
Of course, as I walk into the store, I hear the dulcet tones of retail doom over the loudspeaker:
“All available cashiers to the front. All available cashiers to the front.”
Perfect.
The store is packed.
Absolutely crawling with the energy of other parents who are clearly also missing one—maybe two—ingredients.
Very common these days.
Very normal.
Definitely not just single construction workers buying a sandwich and a bag of chips on their way home.
I nod to myself like this is all part of a collective, deeply shared moment.
Jump forward to getting home, unloading backpacks and lunches that I so lovingly prepared early this morning,
that they half-ate and then forgot about because ADHD is hereditary.
It’s time to witness my masterpiece.
I open the lid and am greeted by a pink, watery grave.
It looks nothing like the dump-and-run restaurant-style butter chicken I was promised.
It looks like someone boiled a dream in tomato yogurt and dropped out of school to smoke weed in the basement of its parents' house.
Maybe it’ll taste good when I add the final ingredients?
Tomato paste and whipping cream get stirred in, and I give it a taste.
It tastes exactly like it looks:
Watery. Somehow both overcooked and underwhelming.
Not fresh. Not lively.
Just limp and lifeless—
like when I put off injecting my testosterone two or three times in a row because "I'll do it tomorrow".
Now. This is where we pivot.
This is where I plot the redemption arc.
Because this butter chicken?
This butter chicken has been a fucking saga.
There’s too much narrative momentum to let it die like this—sad, pink, and emotionally stunted.
The origin story is too strong.
The character development? Too rich.
I’m not serving “damp earthy tomato poultry stew” to my family after all this.
I grab a pan.
Drop in a tablespoon of butter.
Heat on high.
Scoop in a very generous helping of garam masala—still the same dusty-ass bag from before my firstborn took his first breath.
It merges with the sizzling butter and...
Scent. Spice. Something with a promise of actual flavor.
I throw in cumin. A little paprika.
I add in the 1/4 can of diced tomatoes and cook until the whole thing is brick red and smelling like it finally remembered what India tastes like.
Add Salt. Add MSG. A light dusting of some extra ginger powder.
I toss it into the instant pot of sorrow and stir it through.
For the first time since this whole mess started… it actually tastes like something I remember eating in an Indian restaurant.
Rich. Spiced. Tangy.
Not pink. Not sad. Not curdled in defeat.
It’s working.
Now, let me just pause here and say something.
In Canada, a company called KFI has a fantastic brand of Indian sauces, particularly delicious is the KFI brand butter chicken you can pick up at Costco. Comes in a two-pack for ten bucks.
Yeah.
That stuff tastes like what I was aiming for this entire time.
It has two steps.
One of them is rotating the lid.
The other is inverting the jar.
I’m not bitter. I’m not bitter.
I’m just saying...
Sometimes?
There’s just... a better superhero.
Regardless of the effort it took to get there.
Origin stories notwithstanding.
Mine had heart.
It had struggle.
It had flashbacks, chaos, layers of tomato, sweat, and tears.
But at the end of the day, KFI wore the cape the whole time.
And sometimes you don’t need to build the Batcave from scratch.
Sometimes you just need dinner on the table.
What this needed was a squeeze of lemon—which finished it off the with the touch of brightness it needed—
I add a final bloom of butter to complete the loop and I feel like I've finally achieved success.
Now.
When I told my wife I was making that butter chicken dish she sent me on TikTok,
she also mentioned maybe we could do it over broccoli.
Which is great - those flavors actually do work really well together.
I checked the fridge, saw a bag of broccoli, and texted back:
“No problem.”
So I pull out the broccoli…
And it’s limp.
Lifeless.
Like when I forget to take my testosterone shots two or three times in a row because “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
And knowing what I know of what my wife will think based on that experience?
I make a mental note to inject my testosterone tonight and look for something a little stiffer.
I check the veggie drawer. A head of cauliflower tucked in the back.
It’s covered in black spots.
Rice. It. Is.
Great.
Well, now I’ve got just enough time to cook the bacon that’s getting a little grey and throw it into a breakfast burrito with some hashbrowns because the butter chicken is now officially “too spicy” for the kids.
At this point, I just don’t feel like measuring water and rice.
And the Instant Pot I usually use to speedrun perfect, fluffy-ass basmati? It’s full of butter chicken.
[Cooking hack]
Good thing I remembered the ol’ knuckle rice trick.
- Throw as much rice as you want into a pot.
- Fill it with water until it covers the rice and rises just enough so that
- When you touch the top of the rice with your fingertip, the water level hits your first knuckle.
Heat it uncovered.
Let it simmer, covered, for 10.
Let it rest.
[/cooking hack]
That’s it.
No measuring cups. No precision.
Just ancient Asian grandma-level kitchen wisdom passed down from before a time that pyrex was even a thing.
I pull everything together.
For the kids: the aforementioned breakfast-for-dinner with plenty of ketchup.
For us: rice and butter chicken laid into instagram-grade square bowls like this wasn’t fucking difficult at all.
Put the plates on the table.
It's 6PM and dinner is served. On time.
And not a single person at that table knew what the fuck it took to get it there.
By 6:10, it's all over.
“How was it?” I ask.
“Not bad,” she says.
“I think I prefer the KFI sauce though,” I hear her think.
“Me too,” I reply in my head.
“Yeah, not bad,” I say out loud.
"I'm never making this fucking thing again", I say internally.
Time to clean up.