I have said this before but it bears repeating: contrary to what you might have been led to believe, a biryani is one of the easiest Indian dishes you can make. Weeknight easy. You don’t have to slog hours over a slow fire to make a delicious biryani. As I showed you in my vegetable biryani recipe, a quick and tasty biryani is very possible using some clever, but not strenuous, multitasking. And, of course, as you already know if you love Indian food, a biryani is one of the most rewarding dishes you can make: it infuses you, the cook, with a deep sense of satisfaction, and your eaters with awe at this incredible food you just cooked up that they can’t get enough of. For this healthy vegan Dum Aloo Biryani, I combined two of the tastiest Indian dishes: Kashmiri Dum Aloo, a delicious concoction of baby potatoes in a creamy orange fennel and yogurt gravy, and a vegetable biryani. As disparate as these two dishes sound, they do have a lot in common. Both traditional biryanis and dum aloo are Mughlai dishes, legacies of Muslim invaders who arrived in India hundreds of years ago and helped create a cuisine that was decadently rich and flavorful: a cuisine fit for kings. They are both cooked in the “dum” style, where the ingredients are placed in a sealed pot and allowed to cook over a slow fire so they steam together, absorbing each other’s flavors. And a biryani uses many of the same ingredients that a dum aloo does, including yogurt and spices. There’s one more wonderful thing about my dum aloo biryani: I air-fry or bake the potatoes instead of deep-frying them, as is traditionally done. This results in zero loss of taste but it also makes this dish far healthier: rich tasting without the calories. Now that’s a win-win.
Why you’ll love this Vegan Dum Aloo Biryani
Loaded with flavor. You have the tasty, spongy potatoes that soak up the deliciously spiced yogurt gravy. These form the base for those delicious, savory grains of rice flavored with saffron and mint. Easy and quick. The fact that there usually isn’t a great deal of chopping and other prep involved in making a biryani is what, to my mind, makes it an easy dish. On a weeknight I usually just have to get my ingredients together and chop a few herbs. In this recipe you do have one extra step–prepping the potatoes–but that’s not a difficult nor a long process, as I’ll show you. One-dish meal. Serve this dum aloo biryani with a vegan raita and you have a complete meal. Kid-friendly. The yogurt sauce is mildly spiced, and kids will love the combination of rice and potatoes. If you’re not cooking for kids and you would like to add more cayenne, you can definitely do so.
How to make Dum Aloo Biryani
Make-ahead and storage instructions
You can make the dum aloo biryani a day ahead. Reheat it in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes or until warmed through. You can also make the rice and gravy a day or two ahead and assemble and cook the biryani the day you plan to serve it. The biryani will keep in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. For longer storage freeze the biryani in an airtight, freezer-safe container. Thaw and reheat before serving.
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-Jez Check to get new recipe updates by email.
