• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Healthy Recipes
  • Recipes
  • About
  • Subscribe

Easy Cheesy Vegetarian

menu icon
go to homepage
  • Healthy Recipes
  • Recipes
  • About
  • Subscribe
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
  • subscribe
    search icon
    Homepage link
    • Healthy Recipes
    • Recipes
    • About
    • Subscribe
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
  • ×

    Home » Recipes » Vegetarian Dinner Recipes

    Feb 21, 2015 · Modified: Feb 8, 2020 by Becca Heyes · This post may contain affiliate links · 29 Comments

    Easy chickpea biryani

    1.0K shares
    • Share82
    • Tweet
    Total time: 1 hour 45 minutes
    5 from 3 votes
    Jump to Recipe Rate this Recipe
    Easy chickpea biryani - serve with a veggie curry sauce, or just a dollop of mango chutney if you're feeling lazy!

    Have you ever had a biryani? It's basically a curry with rice, but it's all cooked together in the oven so the rice soaks up all of the curry goodness.

    I've avoided making a biryani in the past because honestly, baking rice has always scared me a bit - eeeek, how much water should you use, and eeeeek, don't you just end up with strange, crispy, roasted rice? and eeeeek, how does it ever cook properly?

    (yes, I can be a bit overdramatic sometimes)

    Easy chickpea biryani - serve with a veggie curry sauce, or just a dollop of mango chutney if you're feeling lazy!

    But actually, once I decided to give this chickpea biryani a go, it was really easy. You need to add what looks like far too much water - you'll wonder how it will end up looking like anything other than a swimming pool with a few pieces of rice floating in it. But once the rice absorbs everything, you're left with perfectly cooked rice and lovely soft veggies.

    Easy chickpea biryani - serve with a veggie curry sauce, or just a dollop of mango chutney if you're feeling lazy!

    The key, I found, was to stir everything pretty often - at least a few times during cooking. That way, it'll all cook nice and evenly, and you'll avoid having any undercooked areas of rice.

    So stir, stir, stir!

    (and then stir a little bit more if you can bring yourself to)

    Easy chickpea biryani - serve with a veggie curry sauce, or just a dollop of mango chutney if you're feeling lazy!

    In some Indian restaurants, a biryani is served with a separate dish of curry sauce to pour over the top. I'm not going to lie, this works really well - the biryani itself is slightly on the dry side.

    But, since I can usually only bring myself to make one dish at a time, and I didn't have any jars of sauce on hand to crack open, we had ours on its own, with a dollop of chutney at the side, and it was just loooovely. Obviously mango chutney is the go-to chutney to have alongside Indian food (at least in this country!), but we just had a generic fruit chutney, and it worked really well. So it's up to you whether to have a separate curry sauce to pour over your chickpea biryani, or whether to be lazy and go for some chutney instead.

    Either way, make this chickpea biryani, realise how easy it is, and enjoy!

    Easy chickpea biryani - serve with a veggie curry sauce, or just a dollop of mango chutney if you're feeling lazy!

    Easy chickpea biryani

    If you've cooked this recipe, don't forget to leave a star rating!

    5 from 3 votes
    Print Pin Comment
    Prep Time: 15 minutes
    Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
    Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
    Calories:
    Author: Becca Heyes

    Ingredients

    • 1 red onion
    • 200 g cauliflower ~2 cups, cut into bite-size pieces
    • 200 g potatoes 2 medium/small potatoes, cut into fairly small dice
    • 1 tablespoon oil
    • Salt
    • Black pepper
    • 3 tablespoon curry paste I used a tikka masala paste
    • 750 ml hot vegetable stock ~3 cups
    • 100 g green beans ~1 cup, cut into 2 inch chunks
    • 350 g basmati rice ~1 ¾ cups
    • 400 g tin chickpeas 240g, or ~1 ¼ cups, when drained, drained
    • Juice of ½ a lemon
    • 3 tablespoon fresh coriander cilantro, chopped

    Instructions

    • Heat the oven to 190°C (Gas Mark 5 / 375°F).
    • Peel the red onion, and cut it into 1cm wedges. Add it to a large baking dish, along with the cauliflower and potato chunks. Toss the vegetables in a little oil, and season with salt and pepper.
    • Roast for about 30 minutes, until the potatoes are fairly soft.
    • While the vegetables are roasting, add the curry paste to the hot vegetable stock, and mix well until fully combined.
    • When the vegetables are ready, add the green beans, rice, chickpeas and stock to the baking dish, and mix thoroughly. Cover with foil, and return to the oven for about an hour, stirring every fifteen or twenty minutes, until the rice has absorbed the liquid, and the rice and potatoes are totally soft. If the liquid has been absorbed before the rice and potatoes are soft, just add a dash more liquid and return to the oven.
    • When everything is fully cooked, stir again, and serve with the lemon juice and fresh coriander.

    Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on your exact ingredients. Please calculate your own nutritional values if you require accuracy for health reasons.

    Tried this Recipe? Pin it for Later!Mention @EasyCheesyVeg or tag #EasyCheesyVegetarian!

    Easy chickpea biryani - serve with a veggie curry sauce, or just a dollop of mango chutney if you're feeling lazy!Prefer low-carb versions of your favourite rice dishes? Try my cauliflower fried rice instead!

    Low-carb cauliflower fried rice

    More Vegetarian Dinner Recipes

    • Smoked Cheese and Broccoli Tart
    • 40 Vegetarian Mushroom Recipes
    • Slow Cooker Mushroom Stroganoff
    • Vegetarian Chilli Mac (One Pot!)
    1.0K shares
    • Share82
    • Tweet

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Lisa Martin says

      November 15, 2016 at 8:12 pm

      My rice does not cook by the 45 min mark, have I done something wrong?

      Reply
    2. Cyril says

      March 25, 2016 at 2:02 pm

      Thanks to my father who stated to mee regarding this web site, this webpage is in fact remarkable.

      Reply
    « Older Comments

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    Primary Sidebar

    Hi, I'm Becca! I've been a vegetarian for 20+ years, and unlike most of my other childhood pursuits, I actually stuck with it! I love cooking vegetarian food that's full of flavour, but doesn't take a lot of effort to make.

    More about me →

    As Featured In

    Healthy Recipes

    • Mediterranean Scrambled Eggs with Feta
    • Creamy Mushrooms On Toast
    • Easy Tarka Dal (Vegan Red Lentil Curry)
    • Creamy Cowboy Caviar (with Avocado Dressing)
    • Creamy Three Bean Stew
    • Roasted Vegetable Enchilada Casserole
    • 10 Minute Lemon and Black Pepper Chickpeas
    • Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

    Most Popular

    • Mushroom Bourguignon
    • How to Make Perfect Roast Potatoes
    • How to Cook Halloumi Perfectly
    • How To Fry Gnocchi (and why you should want to!)
    • How to Make a Perfect Baked Potato
    • Mexican Bean and Potato Bake
    • Creamy Vegetable Bake
    • 15 Minute Mushroom Stroganoff

    Hi, I'm Becca! I've been a vegetarian for 20+ years, and unlike most of my other childhood pursuits, I actually stuck with it! I love cooking vegetarian food that's full of flavour, but doesn't take a lot of effort to make.

    More about me →

    As Featured In

    Healthy Recipes

    • 15 Minute Peanut and Sesame Noodles
    • 15 Minute Creamy Pasta Primavera
    • Roasted Vegetable Fattoush
    • Veggie-Packed Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup
    • Sweet Potato Curry
    • Slow Cooker Ratatouille
    • Veggie Burrito Bowls
    • 20 Minute Vegetable Stroganoff

    Most Popular

    • Mushroom Bourguignon
    • How to Make Perfect Roast Potatoes
    • How to Cook Halloumi Perfectly
    • How To Fry Gnocchi (and why you should want to!)
    • How to Make a Perfect Baked Potato
    • Mexican Bean and Potato Bake
    • Creamy Vegetable Bake
    • 15 Minute Mushroom Stroganoff

    Footer

    ↑ back to top

    About

    • About
    • Privacy Policy
    • Accessibility Statement

    Newsletter

    • Subscribe for recipes by email

    Contact

    • Contact

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    Copyright © 2022 Easy Cheesy Vegetarian

    1.0K shares