Butter Chicken Biryani | Easy Chicken Biryani Recipe

A twist on the traditional chicken biryani – this butter chicken biryani is the perfect amalgamation of two classic Indian recipes and will knock you off your feet with its immense delectableness!

Butter chicken and biryani – do they ring a bell in your head? Yes! Today’s recipe of butter chicken biryani is a classic combination of these two delicacies and it will amaze you with the best of both worlds. After making classic restaurant style chicken biryani few times, I was looking for a variation and this butter chicken biryani bounced before me at the very right moment. You may be wondering how this would be different from a regular chicken biryani; but trust me this butter chicken biryani takes the biryani game to a new level altogether and you will be in awe of its amazing flavors long after you finish your meal! In regular biryani, we use ghee or clarified butter which is the quintessential cooking fat in Indian cuisine and I love it too but in this butter chicken biryani I used only butter and no ghee at all to make it the perfect biryani with butter chicken. Even though I am a ghee lover, I must admit that butter brings a lot of flavors to the table and makes everything tastier; our very own butter chicken is a prominent evidence for that. And that’s essentially what makes this butter chicken biryani simply irresistible!
 


Making biryani at home may sound intimidating to many of you but trust me, the process is very much enjoyable and worth every bit of your effort. When you open the biryani pot to serve, the aroma of the freshly cooked biryani fills up your house like a royal kitchen and nothing else can be a better mood-booster than this special butter chicken biryani! I agree that the ingredient list for making biryani is little long, but if you cook Indian food regularly, then I am sure most of the items are already available in your pantry. For me, the only exhausting task is slicing onion for making the crispy fried onions which is an indispensable element of a good biryani and my butter chicken biryani could not miss it. This is when my food processor comes handy and using the slicer attachment, I slice the onions in a jiffy. If you don’t have one and you too are not too fond of chopping onions, not to worry, soak the peeled onions in water for 15 minutes before slicing and you will be saved from watery eyes.

I had already shared few biryani recipes on this blog as well as on my other blog with each having its own specialty but the primary steps are very similar. There are 3 main segments of making biryani, be it the classic one or this butter chicken biryani. First is marinating the chicken. For best result, I recommend you to marinate the chicken a night before so that the chicken gets ample time to absorb all the flavors of spices. Plus, the yogurt based marinate soften the chicken giving it that succulent melt-in-mouth texture which is key to a great biryani. In many casual biryani places, I find the chicken pieces to be very dry & bland and not mingling with the rice properly and that’s exactly what I want to avoid in my own homemade butter chicken biryani. So, if possible, plan your chicken biryani a day ahead and marinate the chicken at least 8 hours before you start making it. Now, if you are struck with sudden craving of a good homemade biryani, you can get away with an hour of marination too but the cooking time may be little longer than what I have mentioned in the recipe below; I am sure you can judge that!
 


Second segment of biryani making is cooking the rice and that too perfectly. Use the best quality Basmati rice you can find as the quality of rice makes significant impact on the final outcome. The better the Basmati is, the more flavorful your biryani will be. Basmati rice is low in starch content which makes the rice fluffy and helps absorbs all the beautiful aromas deeply. A good Basmati is a must for a good biryani – it is completely non-negotiable! While cooking your rice in boiling water, add enough salt to the water as this is the right time to season the rice. I also drop couple of bay leaves and few whole peppercorns for extra flavors; as the rice cooks your kitchen would fill up with enticing aromas! Finally, it’s time to assemble the biryani and that’s the final segment! While I have explained the assembling process in detail below, one very important tip after assembling is to keep the pot on a tawa or skillet and not on direct flame while letting the biryani cook on dum. Keeping on direct flame will lead to scorching the bottom of the pan which may burn the chicken. So, place it on a griddle or skillet and put the skillet on low heat and let the butter chicken biryani cook for 30 minutes on lowest heat setting. That’s all there is to it in making a good chicken biryani at home! So. what are you waiting for? Jazz up your weekend with this mind-blowing chicken biryani and enjoy with friends and family!

Butter Chicken Biryani | Easy Chicken Biryani Recipe

 

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Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

1 hour 30 mins

Total time

2 hours

 

Author: Flavor Quotient

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Indian

Serves: 6 servings

Ingredients

For marinating chicken:

• Chicken – 1 & ½ kg, bone-in & skinless pieces, cut into 15 pieces approximately
• Curd/yogurt – 500 gms, preferably hung/thick yogurt
• Ginger paste – 1 tbsp
• Garlic paste – 1 tbsp
• Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
• Kashmiri red chili powder – 3 tbsp
• Garam masala – 1 tsp
• Salt to taste
  
  

For butter chicken gravy:

• Onion – 1, large, grated
• Ginger – 2-inch piece, grated
• Garlic – 10-12 cloves, grated
• Green chili – 2 (or more as per your liking)
• Mustard oil – 6 to 8 tbsp
• Butter – 4 tbsp
• Green cardamom – 6
• Cloves – 6
• Black cardamom – 2
• Cinnamon – 2-inch piece
• Mace – 1 to 2 pieces
• Star anise – 2
• Tomatoes – 6, blanched and pureed (or ½ cup tomato paste)
• Sugar – 2 tsp
• Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
• Coriander powder – 2 tsp
• Kashmiri chili powder – 3 tsp
• Garam masala – 1 tsp
• Kasoori methi – 2 tsp
• Salt to taste
  
  

For biryani rice:

• Basmati rice – 500 gms, washed and soaked for 15 minutes
• Bay leaf – 2
• Whole peppercorn – 1 tsp
• Salt – 1 tsp
  
  

Other ingredients:

• Onion – 5, large, thinly sliced
• Mustard oil – 2 tbsp + more for deep frying
• Unsalted butter – 6 tbsp (about 70 gms)
• Salted butter – 4 tbsp, cut into 8 to 10 small cubes
• Fresh cream – ½ cup
• Fresh mint leaves – 1 cup
• Fresh coriander leaves – 1 cup, chopped
• Saffron strands – 1 pinch
• Milk – 4 tbsp, warm lightly
• Kesar/orange food color – ½ tsp (optional)

Instructions

Marinating chicken:

1. Wash chicken thoroughly and drain out all excess water. Take them in a large bowl and add all ingredients listed under marinate.
2. Massage all the marinating ingredients well into each piece to coat them thoroughly. Make sure the spices reach deep into the nooks and crannies of the chicken pieces.
3. Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and let the chicken marinate in refrigerator for at least 4 hours but preferably overnight.
   
   

Cooking rice:

1. Boil a large pot of water and add salt, bay leaves and whole peppercorn to it. When the water starts boiling, add the washed rice to it. Cook the rice until half-cooked which would take about 8 to 9 minutes on high heat.
2. Drain the water out immediately and spread the rice in a colander to let excess water drip off. Do not rinse the rice in cold water.
   
   

Making brown onion:

1. Heat enough mustard oil in a deep-frying pan to deep fry the sliced onions. I recommend to deep fry the onions in batches instead of adding all sliced onions at one go. If your pan is not big enough, the onions will be steamed in stead of frying leaving you with soggy onion in stead of crispy fried brown onion.
2. Once the onion slices turn golden brown, take them out and put them on a plate. Keep in mind that onions have carry over cooking effect; so do not wait till they turn completely brown in oil. Take them out before that and they will turn a shade darker while resting due to the carry over cooking effect.
   
   

Cooking chicken:

1. Heat a deep, heavy-bottomed pot and add 2 tablespoons of mustard oil and the unsalted butter to it. Once the butter is melted, add the whole spices to temper it – sahi jeera, green & black cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon, mace and star anise. Sauté them on medium flame until they become fragrant, about a minute or so.
2. Next add the grated onion and cook it for couple of minutes. Then goes in the grated ginger, grated garlic and green chilies. Keep sautéing them on medium flame until they turn golden brown. This would take about 8 to 10 minutes.
3. Now add the marinated chicken along with all the marinating liquid. Their may be a lot of liquid but they will get absorbed as you cook the chicken.
4. Continue cooking the chicken on medium high flame until the oil starts to separate. This will take anywhere between 15 to 20 minutes on medium flame.
5. Once the oil starts to separate, add tomato puree and sugar to balance the tartness of tomatoes. Also season with salt to taste. Stir to mix everything well and let the tomato puree cook for 10 minutes.
6. Now add all the powdered spices – turmeric powder, coriander powder, Kashmiri chili powder and garam masala. Splash couple of spoons of water and fry the spices on medium high heat for 2 minutes or until oil starts to separate again from the mixture.
7. Add kasoori methi to the chicken and stir to mix well. Sauté for couple of minutes more.
8. Add about a cup of hot water to the chicken and bring it to boil. Then cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the chicken is completely cooked.
   
   

Assembling butter chicken biryani:

1. First warm up the milk lightly and add the saffron strands to it to let them release their color. Set aside.
2. Take the pot of chicken off the heat for assembling the biryani in the same pot. Give the chicken a final stir; there should be some gravy left in the pot which will be absorbed by the rice while cooking biryani.
3. Using a spatula, evenly arrange the chicken at the bottom of the pot. Now drizzle the fresh cream on top covering the chicken. Do not stir.
4. Sprinkle half of the crispy brown onion, half of the mint leaves and half of the chopped coriander leaves on top. Try to sprinkle them as evenly as possible. Do not stir.
5. Now add the rice by evenly arranging them on top covering everything below completely so that chicken is not visible from top. Sprinkle remaining fried onion, mint leaves and coriander leaves.
6. Mix the food color, if using, in the saffron infused warm milk and whisk thoroughly to dissolve the color completely. Now drizzle the colored milk on top distributing evenly all over the rice. The milk will trickle down below and color the lower layers of rice too.
7. Finally, place the salted butter cubes all over the rice. You can replace this butter with couple of tablespoons of ghee.
8. Now cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid. I do not seal the lid and still my butter chicken biryani turned out to be super flavorful. If you wish, you can seal the edge of the lid with some dough so that no steam can escape from the pot.
9. Place a heavy bottomed tawa or skillet on high heat and then place the pot of assembled biryani on the tawa. Let the biryani cook on high heat for 2 minutes. Then reduce the flame to lowest setting and let it cook for 30 minutes.
10. After 30 minutes, shut the flame off and let the biryani rest for 15 minutes more before serving. After 15 minutes, uncover the pot and serve the most amazing butter chicken biryani, that too homemade, with raita and salaan! Enjoy!

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