Vegan biryani is a colorful and aromatic rice dish made with fluffy basmati rice layered with mixed vegetables, herbs, and spices. It is later cooked in steam to create a fluffy vibrant rice dish.
Wash basmati rice under the running water. Wash until the water turned clear. Soak them in 4 cups of water. Soak rice for 30 minutes at least.
Wash and cut the vegetables, slice onions. Crush garlic and ginger.
Marinate the Vegetables
In a large bowl mix soy yogurt, tomato paste, ginger paste, garlic paste, salt, and all biryani spices.
These spices are chili powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, cumin seeds, curry powder, garam masala, and paprika. For a quick substitute to these spices, you can add 3 Tbs of Biryani Masla. See recipe notes for more details.
Cook Rice
In a large stockpot boil 6 to 7 cups of water. Add bay leaf, cinnamon stick, cardamom, green chili, and salt to the boiling water.
Next, drain the soaked rice and add it to the boiling water. Cook rice for about 5-to-6-minutes or until rice is just cooked and is still a bit firm in the middle. Rice should be around 75% cooked.
Strain the whole spices from the water and drain the rice in a colander immediately. Slightly fluff the rice with a fork and set aside.
Fry the Onions
Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium to high heat. Add sliced onion and fry.
Remove from heat when they are turning golden brown and strain oil in a strainer. Use this oil to cook vegetable gravy.
Spread onions over a paper towel. Reserve 3 to 4 Tbs of fried onions for garnishing and layering the biryani. Others will be used in the next step.
Cook Vegetable Grevy
Heat a Tablespoon of oil in a pan. Add fried onions and marinated vegetables to it. Fry on medium heat and stir occasionally.
Add half a cup of water to it and cover. Keep the heat medium and let the vegetables cook on steam. You can stir them occasionally. Cooks the vegetables 75% and leaves a bite to them, just like rice.
Turn off the heat and add sliced bell peppers.
Layer the Vegan Biryani
Take a deep heavy bottom pan and slightly grease it with oil. First, add the rice layer at the bottom, the base should be completely covered with rice. Layer approximately one-third of the rice.
Next layer the vegetable gravy. Add half of the vegetable gravy to this layer. Add another layer of one-third rice on top of it followed by the remaining vegetable gravy.
Spread the last layer of rice and sprinkle fried onions on top of it that we reserved.
Sprinkle some mint and coriander leaves, thinly sliced lemons, and tomatoes.
Pour Orange food color on three to four spots. Drizzle some oil on top.
Cover the pot with foil and then put the lid on. Fold the foil over the pot lid so there will be no chance of steam getting out of the pot.
Dum (steam the Biryani)
Return the pot to the stove over medium heat. Let the steam be built in the pot for three to five minutes.
Once the side of the pot is hot, reduce the heat to the lowest. Let them cook on steam for about 20 minutes.
Remove from heat and let them rest with the lid on for 10 more minutes.
Serve
While serving keep in mind that a nice-looking biryani always has patches of yellow rice, curried vegetables, orange food color rice, and white rice. To get this result use a thin large spoon and do not mix or fluff biryani into the pot. Carefully dig deep into the pot and try to scoop out and get all texture and color patches from all layers into the plate, hope this makes sense. (see the video for better understanding)
Video
Notes
Tips and Tricks
You can avoid the lengthy process of frying onions and simply buy pre-fried onions for your local markets and they will do the job. Use ½ cup of fried onions as a substitute in curry and 3 Tbs for garnish.
If you are overwhelmed by the long list of biryani spices simply substitute it with any biryani masala available in Indian and some local grocery stores.
Do not overcook the vegetables they will get mushy and will not taste good.
Stir continuously while frying onion to get a consistent color.
If you want to avoid food color, use some saffron strings in water.