Today’s recipe comes from the royal kitchens of India- Chicken Biryani, a fragrant and signature dish that is an ultimate one pot meal. Simple and basic recipe where marinated chicken is cooked in spices, topped with rice, layered with fried onions, cilantro-mint leaves and steam cooked to perfection. Very easy to make and tastes amazing.
I would recommend to use a heavy bottomed pan for this recipe. Marinating chicken for an hour is sufficient but if you have time, chicken can be left overnight. Fried onions are the main ingredient of this recipe. Adding cornflour to onions result in crispy and crunchy onion rings. No cornflour on hand no worries try besan or gram flour. Dust onion rings or slices with flour and shake off the excess or else the flour will mess up the oil.
Number of spices are added to flavor this biryani but the overall biryani is very delicately spiced, and the yogurt gravy adds a nice taste and texture to the recipe. Rice should be half-cooked before adding them to cooked chicken. Adding ghee on top adds a punch of flavor to the entire recipe. Chicken can be substituted with mutton – cooking time will vary.
This recipe is thoroughly enjoyed in my family and my younger one calls it yellow rice Bi-yani 🙂 . An absolutely delicious dinner that is so yummy and packed with flavor!! Enjoy it with vinegar onion. Give it a try and I am sure it will soon be added to your list of family favorites.
Try out other chicken recipes – Chicken keema, Keema kofta curry, Dhaba style chicken, Saag chicken, Chicken chaap, Butter chicken, Tandoori Chicken, Chicken kebab, Kalmi Kebab.
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Chicken Biryani
Ingredients
FRYING ONIONS
- 3 medium Onions
- 2 tablespoon Cornflour
- Oil for Frying
SPICES FOR MARINADE
- 1 LB Chicken or 450 gms.
- 1 teaspoon Shahi Jeera (caraway seeds)
- 2 teaspoon Degi Mirch
- 3 teaspoon Coriander powder (sukha dhaniya)
- 1/2-3/4 teaspoon Cinnamon Powder
- 2 teaspoon Garam Masala Powder
- 1/4 teaspoon Haldi (Turmeric powder)
- 4 cloves of Crushed Garlic
- 3 teaspoon Crushed ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon Cardamom Powder
- 4-5 blades of Mace (Javitri)
- 1.5 cup Curd (thick Market curd/yogurt)
- 2 tablespoon Chopped Cilantro
- 2 tablespoon Chopped Mint leaves
RICE PREPARATION
- 1.5 cups Rice
- 2 teaspoon Cumin seeds
- 2 pieces of Black Cardamom
- 5-6 pieces of Cloves
- 3-4 pieces of Bay leaves (Tej patta)
- 1 tablespoon Oil
- Salt to Taste
ASSEMBLING INGREDIENTS
- 1/4 cup Milk
- 1 teaspoon Saffron strands
- 2 tablespoon Chopped Cilantro
- 2 tablespoon Chopped Mint leaves
- 1 tablespoon Ghee (to sprinkle on top)
Instructions
FRYING ONIONS
- Slice onions in rings. Transfer it to a strainer and dust it with cornflour. Reason I did this is to shake off all the excess cornflour before frying the onions.
- Heat Oil and deep fry the onions till they are light brown in color and crisp. Do not over fry them or else they will taste bitter.
- Fried onions are ready for biryani.
ASSEMBLING SPICES AND INGREDIENTS
- Assemble all the ingredients for marinade.
- Beat curd and chop mint and cilantro leaves.
- Clean and wash chicken pieces.
PREPARING CHICKEN
- In a big bowl add curd and mix in all the spices one by one.
- Keep stirring in between so that no lumps are formed.
- Whisk it thoroughly. Before adding chicken adjust your seasonings.
- Add chicken...
- Cilantro and mint leaves..
- And finally add hand crushed fried onions to the batter.
- Give it a good mix, cover and let it sit in the refrigerator for an hour or 2-3 hours.
PREPARING RICE
- Meanwhile lets prep up the rice.
- Clean and wash rice under cold water.
- In a pan heat oil, add whole spices and when they start to sputter add in water, salt and bring it to a boil. Mix in rice...
- Cook till the grains are half cooked. How to check that - take few grains in your hands and try to crush them - if you have to apply a little pressure to crush them that's the perfect half cooked grain.
- Drain all the water and keep the rice aside.
ASSEMBLING BIRYANI
- Heat oil in a kadhai, add marinated chicken and cook till chicken is cooked and oil separates. It will look like a thick masala. Add 1/4 cup of water and make a slight gravy.
- Warm milk and add saffron strands to it. Mix till milk turns yellow in color.
- Spread rice over the chicken.
- Keep spreading till chicken is fully covered with rice layer.
- Sprinkle saffron mixed milk all over the rice.
- By now your rice will look like this.
- Sprinkle chopped cilantro and mint leaves.
- Sprinkle fried onions and lots of onions.. Finally drizzle ghee on top...
- Cover and cook for 10-12 minutes or until rice is soft and tender. I always apply a cloth on top of my rice and steam cook (dum) it.
- Chicken Biryani is ready.
- Serve hot with vinegar onions and curd.
david says
very nice showing method,&very clear steps to follow the recipe,thanks.I like it.no word to say really nice one keep it up , Thanks.
Ruchi says
Thank you, David.
Glad to hear that you found the recipe helpful!
Dr Vijay says
Thanks for sharing this.. appreciate your work..i tried in pressure cooker previously..will try this in pan with cloth..
Ruchi says
Pleasure is all mine. Thanks for stopping by.
Sheetal says
Am a vegetarian. Making for someone SPL.Could u assist me from where can I get chicken or which part of chicken should be used.Real or Venkys can be used.
Ruchi says
Thanks for stopping by Sheetal. You can get chicken from your local supermarket or meat shop. Since you are a vegetarian, I would suggest buying a already clean pack from the market. Chicken legs and breast are good to begin with.
Joels says
Very nice write-up. I absolutely appreciate your site. Lovely and easy to make recipes. Continue the good work!
RK says
Thanks Joels! Glad you liked. 🙂
william says
Excellent, what a blog it is! This webpage presents valuable facts to us, keep it up.
RK says
Thanks William!!
Kiran says
This is a great recipe. Thank you for sharing it.
RK says
You are welcome Kiran. Glad you liked it!!
nitu says
Aise hi lovely recipes share krte rhiyega….
RK says
Sure dear will do that. Thanks for stopping by and I glad you liked it, Nitu. 🙂
nitu says
amazing teast … thanks for sharing.
RK says
You are welcome, Nitu!!
Sanjiv says
I think you have not seasoned rice with salt I do add salt while cooking rice otherwise Biryani will be bald in taste,
RK says
Oops, sorry about that Sanjiv, fixed it!! Thanks for pointing that out to me. Rice was seasoned during the cooking process, just missed mentioning about the salt.
Adèle says
I’m going to try the recipe this saturday but I’m wondering about the last step of the recipe: do you steam cook the assembled biryani for 1:30 hours? It seems like a long time, especially since the chicken has already been in the kadhai for some time at this point. In any case, it looks absolutely delicious!
RK says
Oops..excuse me for not being so clear in my steps and thanks for bringing this up Adele. As stated in the recipe, rice is half cooked and chicken is fully cooked – so after assembling everything together biryani is only cooked for 10-12 minutes on a low flame or until rice is soft. 1:30 hour includes 1 hour of marination and 30 minutes of cook time. In between that 1 hour of marination rest of the recipe was assembled. Hope that helps 🙂
Preena says
I am not clear about that part… was the chicken fully cooked before you started with layering the rice? I tried this recipe last night… I added the half cooked rice to the chicken which had been in the kadhai for only 5 minutes… cooked on dum for around 30 minutes… the chicken was cooked and extremely tender. I thought that this was because the chicken had been marinating for around 4 hours.
The biryani turned out great… Thankyou for sharing the recipe.
Ruchi says
The chicken was partially cooked, Preena.
Thanks for sharing your experience with me. Glad you liked the recipe. 🙂