Andy Cooks - Chicken Biryani

Chicken biryani

My Biryani video is one of my most viral to date, so it deserves its own long format video to truly do it justice! This time, I decided a traditional Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani was in order. It’s easy, achievable and a great dish for serving lots of people! Let me know in the comments how yours went.

star

Cooked this? Comment and rate the recipe

Rating

0

Name *

Email *

Comment *

19 Comments

Joe

22 June 2025
So this turned out pretty good for my first attempt, but had some issues. The food at the bottom of the pot got burnt from following this recipe verbatim. It may be one of those things where Andy's cooktop's "high heat" is different from mine. Thought it wouldn't be since mine and his are induction cooktops.

In his second step, I assumed the ingredients that laid out a specific amount was only partial of what is called in the ingredient list, so I ended up using the whole thing if it didn't. So I used up all my herbs on the marinade part. Now I know why Chef Jean-Pierre says to read the entire recipe a few times.

Finally, the video calls for milk infused with saffron, but the written recipe doesn't even talk about this at all. I'm not sure why it's omitted. I know the video mentioned tumeric as an alternative to saffron, but no explanation why the lack of milk here. Again, I followed the written recipe to the letter, so perhaps the lack of milk contributed to the food at the bottom of my pot to burn?

It's a good recipe, and at least the portion that wasn't burned came out delicious. The rice was perfect and the chicken was on point. I can definitely go into round two knowing what I need to adjust. My main criticism is the written recipe needs to match the video or it'll confuse people like myself. It also does not bode confidence if I ever want to buy your cookbook.

Ryvamo

27 April 2025
Quite scary to just let this be for such a long time without peeking, but other than that loved cooking this recipe!

As others have said, about half the rice for 1kg of chicken seems plenty (i used little under 3 cups, as I see that in other recipes).

But thanks again for great recipe!

Shaun

26 April 2025
As others have said, it ended up being a TON of rice compared to the sauce, so even after stirring it around, I ended up with a lot of plain white rice with the occasional pocket of flavored rice, so I ended up tripling (except for the onions) the amount of the marinating sauce...

... which worked well, because we found that there wasn't all that much chicken in the original attempt, either. Now, this was partially my fault. We're a whole family of people who hates dealing with bones in food, so I went with boneless thighs and just cut them up into pieces before marinating them. I did cut them a bit too small (not accounting for the fact that they'd shrink a bit), so the chicken was kind of hard to find in the finished dish.

So in the end, I used an entire 4.5 lb package of boneless skinless thighs from the store, trimmed and cut into decent-sized chunks, which worked out well with the increase in marinating sauce.

On top of that, we didn't really find much benefit to the "layered" approach, so before steaming, I just stirred everything together so it was all coated.

Also, when you're doing the final cook, I'd consider doing the medium-high part at medium, depending on your stove. I didn't think our stove was THAT powerful, but the first batch I tried left a nice layer of burned stuff all over the bottom of the pot which took ages to scrape off. Lowering the heat to medium left a little behind, but it was much more manageable.

Still, even with all the tweaks, it's still a really good recipe. Good flavor, and really hit the spot since we can't find a good indian restaurant in our area.

Sucheta

6 April 2025
It tasted very good.

ChrisDGoosey

3 April 2025
Loved the multi layers. Will certainly do this again. I had too much rice for my pot (and it was a very big one) but frying it in some of the onion oil and cracking a couple of eggs into it made a stella egg fried rice

Asiakharlukhi

12 March 2025
Great picture of biryani

Porta

16 February 2025
Look good and doable definitely going to try it

Sharon

10 February 2025
Awesome recipe thank you Andy

Ahmad

7 February 2025
It's a fuc* recipe but I like it lol bro 💀

Lewis

5 February 2025
I really like the general.1st attempt wasn't best meal at there was a bit too much rice. Double checked with my friends mum in India and she advised half the rice would be fine.

Grace

26 January 2025
I make this at least once every 2 weeks. Amazing recipe!

Elwyn

26 January 2025
Thank you for the step by step guidance. I cooked it last night and it was a hit with the whole family

gilles

5 January 2025
great

Fergus

29 December 2024
Very good

Jawahar

19 December 2024
Can the chicken be cooked a day ahead ?
Does the chicken have to be fully cooked before being layered with the rice ?

Andy

22 December 2024
Hey Jawahar, that should be fine to cook it a day ahead, Just store it in an airtight container in the fridge and reheat it gently before layering it with the rice.

Harish

16 December 2024
Love the detailed steps.I am a vegetarian but the presentation and cooking process tempts me to eat ..
will wait for video on Panner biryani.. thank you Andy.

Andy

18 December 2024
Thanks Harish!

Anthony

31 August 2024
1kg of rice is way too much for this recipe, it should probably only be a few cups