Name: Quick and easy chicken biryani traybake
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 1 tbsp olive oil; 250 g chicken thighs; 1 onion (sliced); 1 clove garlic (minced); 1 tsp green chilli (sliced); 1 tsp Garam Masala; 1/2 tsp ginger (ground ginger); 100 g Basmati rice; 200 ml chicken stock; 100 g peas (frozen peas)

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This super quick and easy chicken biryani traybake is moist and succulent, packed with amazing flavours and ready in just 30 minutes making it the perfect meal for any night of the week.

Chicken biryani in bowl with serving dish behind and fork on plate

Why you’ll love this recipe

Chicken curry is one of the most popular dishes in the UK, whether bought as a carry-out or made at home, we just can’t get enough of it. So why not make your own amazing chicken biryani at home.
This chicken biryani is a traybake recipe meaning it’s all done on one oven dish, so easy and less washing up!
Quick and easy – you are just bringing everything together for this biryani style curry really quickly, all done in about half an hour so perfect as a midweek meal.

What is chicken biryani?

This is a chicken curry dish that is cooked all together. The rice and chicken are steamed in one pan so that all those delicious aromatics and chicken juices seap into the rice resulting in the most flavoursome chicken curry you can imagine.

Biryani is an Indian savoury rice dish that mixes meat and rice all steamed together rather like a Persian Pilaf. In fact, the word Biryani is derived from the Persian word Birinj which means rice.

What is the difference between a biryani and a pilaf?

Well they are both very similar really and both have the same roots, but a pilaf tends to have more veggies and rice instead of meat to rice ratio.

I love chicken and rice dishes, it is comfort food at it’s best and always quick and easy to make. If I’m not cooking this easy chicken biryani recipe then I like to make chicken pilaf and chicken risotto too.

Ingredients for chicken biryani

Chicken – the star of the show in this biryani recipe. I like to use chicken thighs as they are cheaper than chicken fillets and have lots more flavour.

Veggies – the basics of onion and garlic to give flavour to your chicken biryani and also peas for sweetness and a wonderful pop of green colour.

Spices – well, this wouldn’t be any sort of curry recipe without some amazing aromatic spices and this chicken biryani recipe has Garam Masala and ground ginger plus fresh green chilli for that hint of heat.

Stock – chicken stock (a stock cube is just fine) is the liquid that cooks the rice within this biryani dish and flavours everything from the bottom up.

Rice – biryani is a chicken and rice dish so the rice is pretty important here, it soaks up all those amazing flavours of the chicken and spices. I use Basmati rice for my biryani recipe.

How to make chicken biryani

This is such a simple one-pan biryani recipe. So you want to use an oven tray that can be used on the hob as well as being put in the oven to bake the biryani.

First things first – brown the chicken in your pan/dish and then remove it from the pan and set aside.

Add the onions to the same pan and cook for 5 minutes then add the garlic, chilli and your spices and cook for a further 2 minutes or so.

Now add the rice to the pan and the chicken too and give it a stir before covering the whole baking dish with tinfoil.

Pop your chicken biryani in the oven to steam for about 20 minutes. The rice should have absorbed all the stock by this point.

Now add the peas to your biryani and recover and pop it back into the oven for 5 minutes more.

Your one-pan chicken biryani curry is now ready to serve.

Serve your delicious homemade chicken biryani curry with a sprinkling of fresh parsley or coriander and maybe some dry roasted peanuts for extra crunch and texture too.

bowl of chicken biryani with serving dish behind

How many does this serve?

This simple chicken biryani curry recipe is for 2 people. You can easily make it for more just by doubling up the recipe to suit the number you are catering for.

How to serve chicken biryani

You can serve this easy biryani curry recipe either hot (as biryani is traditionally served) r cold if you have leftovers. This chicken biryani makes a great buffet/picnic dish too.