Muslim biryani recipe made in South Indian style – a generalized recipe that one can use to prepare a delicious, flavorful and simple meat biryani. This biryani is made during andhra and tamil muslim weddings and family get together. Fairly easy to make even for a crowd due to its simplicity.
You can also check these other recipes of pakki mutton biryani recipe and hyderabadi mutton dum biryani on the blog. The recipe shared in this post is good for beginners and for those who do not have much time to go through an elaborate process of making dum biryani.
To make this easy biryani recipe, you don’t need any readymade biryani masala powder, since I am also sharing how to make an instant biryani masala powder which can be made in just 2 minutes. This biryani can be made in a pressure cooker or an oven. Both tips mentioned at the end of the post in notes.
To prepare this muslim biryani, I have used chicken, you can substitute it to make mutton or egg biryani too. This recipe is very different from the pakki dum biryani and hyderabadi chicken dum biryani that is from the Mughal cuisine.Though the ingredients that go towards the making these dishes are same, the taste is entirely different since the cooking methods are different.
More Biryani recipes,
Chicken biryani in cooker
Awadhi biryani
Ambur biryani
Malabar biryani
Preparation for muslim biryani
1. Slice onions and chop tomatoes, set them aside separately. Soak rice in water for atleast 20 minutes.
2. Marinate chicken or mutton with little lemon juice or curd, salt and turmeric. Set this aside to tenderize. If your mutton is not tender you can use meat tenderizer or set aside for about 1 hour to overnight.
3. Add pepper corn, cinnamon stick, cloves, nutmeg, fennel seeds, stone flower and cardamoms to a blender and make a fine powder. Keep this aside in a plate.
4. To the same jar, add onions, ginger, garlic, mint and coriander leaves, make a fine paste.
How to make muslim biryani
5. Heat a heavy bottom utensil, add bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, mace, black and green cardamons, shahi jeera.
6. When they begin to splutter, add the mint and coriander paste. Fry till the paste begins to smell nice. It takes around 2 to 3 minutes
7. Add tomatoes, salt and turmeric. Fry or cover and cook till the tomatoes turn fully mushy.
8. Add chicken or mutton and fry on low flame for 3 to 5 minutes.
9. Add masala powder from step 3, and red chili powder. Fry for about 3 minutes on a low flame without burning.
10. Add curd and stir well.
11. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes for the chicken. If using mutton cook till soft and tender, it doesn’t get cooked well with rice later. you can even pressure cook mutton for 1 to 2 whistles at this stage. The oil begins to separate and the gravy thickens. We do not want watery gravy.
Cooking muslim biryani
12. Pour 3 ¼ cups water and add salt, we have already marinated the chicken with salt and used salt to cook tomatoes, so use less salt.
13. Bring the water to a rapid boil. While the water boils, drain off the rice to a colander. Make sure there is no water left in rice
14. Cook till the rice is almost cooked with very less water left and the rice must be 75 percent cooked. If you feel the rice is undercooked, sprinkle some hot water over the rice and stir. However you must not exceed using 3 ½ cups water on the whole.
15. Add kewra or rose water. Stir gently and cover the lid and put on dum for about 5 to 7 minutes.
16. For the dum process, if you have an induction stove, you could switch it to the minimum. If on gas stove, heat an old dosa tawa, place the biryani utensil on the tawa and dum it for about 5 to 7 minutes. Consider the time when the tawa becomes hot. Do not open for atleast 10 to 15 minutes after you switch off the stove. When still hot, fluff up the rice with a fork.You can even dum this in oven for about 15 to 25 minutes at 180 c preheated oven.
Muslim chicken biryani is served with onion raita or shorba.
Related Recipes
Muslim biryani recipe
Muslim biryani
For best results follow the step-by-step photos above the recipe card
Ingredients (1 cup = 240ml )
To powder
- 1 nutmeg Very small piece/ jaiphal
- 4 green cardamoms / elaichi
- ¼ to ½ tsp Pepper corn / kali mirch
- 5 cloves / laung
- 1 cinnamon stick Small / dalchini
- ½ tsp fennel seeds / saunf
- ½ tsp stone flower / kalapasi/ dagad phool
To make a fine paste
- 12 to 15 mint leaves / pudina
- 12 to 15 stems coriander leaves , small / daniya patta
- 1 ½ inches ginger / adrak
- 3 pods garlic large , or 6 to 8 small/ lehsun
- 2 to 3 green chilies / hari mirch
- 1 onion large , chopped
To Temper
- 1 bay leaf / tej patta
- 1 black cardamom small / badi elaichi
- 4 green cardamoms / choti elaichi
- 4 cloves / laung
- 1 Cinnamon stick / dalchini
- 1 Star anise / chakra phool
- 2 strands mace / javitri
- ¼ to ½ tsp shahi jeera
Other ingredients
- ½ kg chicken or tender mutton
- 2 cups basmathi rice , aged
- 3 ¼ to 3 ½ cups water
- 3 tbsp Oil
- Salt as needed
- ¼ tsp turmeric
- ¼ tsp red chili powder
- 1 tomato medium
- 1/2 cup curd / yogurt / dahi
- 1 tsp rose water or kewra
Instructions
Preparation for muslim biryani
- Soak rice for at least 20 mins.
- Wash chicken or mutton under running water, drain off the water completely and marinate with little curd or lemon juice, salt and turmeric. Rub the meat with the marination for about 5 minutes keep this aside.
- Chop tomatoes, slice onions, keep them aside for later use.
- Pluck the mint and coriander leaves and wash in lot of water, set them to drain.
- Powder all the ingredients mentioned under “To powder” in a blender. Transfer this to a plate and keep it for later use.
- Make a paste of the green chilies, onions, mint, coriander leaves, ginger and garlic.
Cooking muslim biryani
- Heat a heavy bottom pan, add spices mentioned under “To temper”. Let them crackle.
- Add the onion mint paste to the pan and fry for about 2 to 3 minutes
- Add tomatoes, turmeric and salt. Cook or fry till the tomatoes turn soft. If needed you can cover the pot and make the tomatoes soft.
- Add chicken or mutton and fry on a low heat for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Add powdered masala and red chili powder and fry till it becomes fragrant
- Pour curd and mix. Cook until the meat turns tender, if mutton you can pressure cook for 1 to 2 whistles till it turns tender and soft. Cook till the oil begins to separate and the gravy thickens.
Water to cook muslim biryani
- Pour 3 ¼ cups water and add salt
- When the water begins to boil rapidly, drain off the water from the rice completely otherwise the rice turns mushy. Add the rice to the water and cook till it is 75% cooked. If the water is not sufficient, you can sprinkle hot water and stir.
- Drizzle kewra or rose water.Cover the pot with a tight lid .Place the biryani utensil on a hot tawa and dum it for about 5 to 7 minutes. Switch off the stove.
- Serve muslim biryani with onion raita and a salan.
Notes
You can increase the quantity of oil by another one to 2 tsps for added taste
For oven method: place the rice for dum in the preheated oven at 180 c for 15 to 25 minutes
For the pressure cooker method: close the cooker lid when the rice is cooked 75% and lower the stove flame to minimum and cook for 5 minutes, don’t let the cooker whistle
Alternative quantities provided in the recipe card are for 1x only, original recipe.
For best results follow my detailed step-by-step photo instructions and tips above the recipe card.
NUTRITION INFO (estimation only)
© Swasthi’s Recipes
Nivae says
I tried it and it came out really well. Thank you for sharing!
swasthi says
Welcome Nivae
Glad to know! Thank you
Nivae says
I’ve a question. How do you know if it’s 75% cooked?
swasthi says
It is 75% cooked, when the rice is partially cooked and it is still hard inside and not edible. When you mash the grains they will break to pieces and not turn mushy since it is undercooked.
Nivae says
Thank you Swasthi!! 🙂
Dhil says
Hi.. this is my fav recipe..How much spoons of biriyani masala powder (ur home made recipe) can we use here instead of powdering the dried spices mentioned here? I m running out of time now. Please help.
swasthi says
Hi Dhil,
No not for this recipe! The special flavors in this recipe come from the spice powder I mentioned in the post. You can try this easy chicken biryani if you have the homemade biryani powder
Dhil says
Thank you so much ..will do..😊
Sona Philip says
Hai Swathi
I made semiya payasam for your recipes .com . It was so tasty .My husband don’t like payasam.but when I made this recipe he told me he had never had a good payasam in life ,it was so tasty.he finished the rest without giving me.any way Swathi I appreciate you for this.i tried 2 recipes also that also turn delicious.again I will try more recipes from your blog and let you know.
swasthi says
Hi Sona
Glad your payasam turned out tasty. Yes do try more recipes. Would love to hear how the recipes turn out for you. Thanks much for the comment.
🙂
Lourdes LOUIS says
Muslim biryani recipe the same as Pondicherry biryani but we don’t use
rose essence or kevra.
Bravo. Keep it up.
I’m the author of PONDICHERY KITCHEN-a Westland publication.
Lourdes Tirouvanziam- Louis
Chevalier des Palmes Academiques
Chevalier dans l’ordre National du Merite.
swasthi says
Thank you
Arsh says
Biryani yellow ni hoti hai
Dil says
Hi,
I have tried this biryani many times. It came out really well. If I want to make 4 cups rice,do I need to double all the other ingredients?
swasthi says
Hi Dil
thanks for trying. Yes you can double the recipe. Just take care of the water. You can reduce 1/4 cup water after doubling the quantity. If needed then add that 1/4 cup (hot water) later
Lata says
Nice
Priya says
Hi Swasthi,
First of all a big thank you for all the recipes, they are perfect…
A quick question, if we want to prepare for double or triple the quantity should all ingredients be doubled or tripled accordingly? I tried that last week for mutton biriyani – 6 cups rice, it didn’t come out well… The spice taste was very prominent..
Please advise..
swasthi says
Hi Priya
I am very sorry for the delay. I am on a vacation so was unable to reply. I haven’t tried this recipe with 6 cups rice. But did you use 240 ml cup and which rice did you use? .I am not sure if it works if you triple the recipe. Probably you will have to only double the spices and triple the rice and chicken.
DAUD says
Thanks for all this recipes but where do I get most of the hebs and spices
Denisse says
Very easy to make Indian Britain chicken. I made it. Yeayyyyy. I can marry now with Indian . man
swasthi says
Thanks for trying Denisse
Good luck!
🙂
Rachna says
Hi …your dish looks flavourful.
I Am now preparing to marinate the chicken overnight as per your instructions, however I have one question here….why can we not add the powdered masala, red chili powder and curd to the marinade along with the haldi,curd n salt …rather than add them into the process whilst cooking ..won’t it be better absorbed overnight than otherwise.
swasthi says
Hi Racha
Thanks. I haven’t tried it that. Usually when we add whole spices they can be marinated for long time as the flavors will not be lost. But ground masala not sure. You can try adding half to the marinade and half while cooking. That should be good.
Rachna says
Hello, I have tried this recipe thrice so far .
Twice with chicken and today replaced chicken with boiled eggs , potato and carrot. Loved it all three times.
The powdered biryani Masala is perfect in itself.
Thank you .
swasthi says
Welcome Rachna,
Thanks for trying and sharing the outcome. Yes the biryani masala makes this dish special.