How To Make The Best Pulao | Tips + Troubleshooting

Cooking a good Pilau / Pulao dish used be a challenging feat for me in the early days of my culinary adventures.

I used to be confused a lot by the process of everything - How many onions do I use? Do I use tomatoes? Green chillies? - my in-laws use tons! What is the correct rice/water ratio? Do I realllyyyy have to soak my rice?

Every region has their own kind of Pilau / Pulao. For example, I learnt that the Karachi style of making Chicken Pilau often uses fennel seeds (saunf) and tomatoes, whereas the Punjabi style, as I have written a recipe for here, doesn't.

As you get more familiar with cooking a Pilau / Pulao, you will settle into your own groove and will grow to learn your own and your families preferences. You'll learn whether you prefer adding some green chillis into your Pilau / Pulao, or whether you prefer a milder flavour with no heat. You'll learn whether you like lots of cumin (zeera) or less.

You may pick up your own tweaks and quirks too, partial to what you and your family like. For example, I remember a family friend of ours who lived with us when I was much younger used to add julienne-cut slices of green capsicum alongside the onions and it smelt amazing! The fragrance of frying capsicum always reminds me of him now. I also saw Shayma from the The Spice Spoon using leeks instead of onions in her pulao which has been playing in my mind as something I need to try out soon.

Jump to:

• ❓ What is a pulao?
• 🥣The two main cooking methods
• 🧅 Tips for the onions
• Tips for the rice
• Tips for spices
• Steaming the rice ('dum')
• Tips for serving and garnishing

❓ What is a pulao?

In essence, a pulao is a rice dish compromised of fried onions, aromatic spices and a 2nd component, which can be a meat (lamb, chicken, beef, fish etc), vegetable (peas, chickpeas, lentils, etc).

For the sake of this post, I will refer to the 2nd component of the pulao as 'the 2nd component'.

🥣The two main cooking methods

There are largely two main methods for cooking pulao. They both yield the same results, the only difference is the method. I'm going to walk you through both the methods, just to give you an understanding of what they entail.

Method 1 - the yakhni method

This method is the more 'traditional' method, usually used for meats. It's also the lengthier method, requiring more pots. I use this method in my Chicken Yakhni Pulao recipe. Here's an overview of this method:

1. Cook your meat alongside whole aromatic spices in water until the meat is cooked. This will create a 'broth', called yakhni in Urdu.
2. Separate the meat from the broth liquid. Sieve out and discard the whole spices. Set aside the meat and the broth.
3. In another pot, fry sliced onions till brown.
4. Add in the reserved meat to the onions. Sauté this until the meat takes on some golden colouring.
5. Add in the reserved stock.
6. Add in the rice.
7. Cook the until the water is absorbed into rice and the rice is about 90% done.
8. Steam everything over a low heat with the lid on - called 'dum' in Urdu.

Method 2 - the one-pot method

This method, as the name suggests, involves just one pot - thus making it the easier way to cook pulao. This is the almost exclusive method used for vegetable or legume-based pulaos, like my Matar Pulao recipe. However, I do like it for meat-based pulaos too - I've used it in my Lamb Pulao recipe.

Here's an outline of this method:

1. Fry sliced onions in a pot till golden brown
2. Add in your 2nd element. If this is a meat, fry this till it takes on some colour.
3. Proceed to add whole spices, salt and water. How much water you add will depend on what your 2nd element is:
   • If your 2nd element will take long to cook (e.g., red meat, raw legumes, you'll add enough water to allow the 2nd element to cook through before proceeding.
   • If your 2nd element doesn't need much time to cook, or is already cooked (e.g., frozen peas, cooked chickpeas, prawns), you can add in just the amount of water you need to cook the rice. More on this in the 'water' section further.
4. Once the 2nd element + water is combined, add the basmati rice. This will cook on a high heat, stirring often, until all the water is absorbed into the rice and the rice is about 90% done.
5. Bring the heat to a low flame, cover with a tight fitting lid to steam 'dum'.

I've compiled a list of tips for how to make a good Pulao / Pilau below, which I have divided into sections to make this an easier read. I've also compiled a list of tips from my Instagram followers too at the end.

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🧅 Tips for the onions

Slice your onions into slivers or rings.

Thin slices will brown quicker, more evenly and generally speaking, they look better than diced or chopped onions.

Think of the onions as a dye to your rice.

The darker your onions are + the greater amount of onions you have, the darker your rice will be. Also, using red onions will lead to darker rice than white onions. You can use this tip to increase or decrease the amount of onions in a recipe if you'd like a different end colour.

You will need to stir the onions regularly to avoid them browning unevenly. I find this is easier to do when the onions are frying on mid-heat.

How dark should I fry the onions?

When frying the onions, do keep in mind that you will also be adding and frying your 2nd component, so don't brown your onions so much that when you are adding your 2nd component, they're over-done and burn. Chicken and red meats will take time to brown and vegetables/legumes do not need to be browned and thus only require a few minutes of contact with the oil. Keep this in mind when you brown your onions. I like to get my onions to a golden shade when I'm adding chicken or red meat and a brown shade (close to almost done) for vegetables/legumes.

Which onions are best for pulao?

This is a personal preference - but I prefer red onions in a pulao. I just love the flavour they impart and how they look in the end. Red onions also take longer to break down, so I like how they remain visible in the rice in the end.

Tips for the rice

What rice to use for pulao

Basmati rice is the rice for pulao. There are two options here: regular basmati, or sela basmati.

Sela basmati rice is parboiled (semi-cooked) and it tends to be firm, therefore. less likely to break/turn to mush. Ultimately, it's very forgiving. This makes it ideal for beginner cooks, and those who may be cooking for an occasion they can't afford to mess up 😉😉.

Regular basmati rice isn't as forgiving, however some people believe the flavour permeates the rice grain better and deeper than sela. As sela is semi-cooked, it makes sense that the flavour won't permeate as deep into the rice.

Which is better? Honestly, it's a personal preference. I use regular basmati rice because I'm confident with cooking it without breakage, and because I do find a difference in the depth of flavour with sela. If you don't have this issue, and/or you have recurrent issues with rice grain breaking, go for sela.

Preparing the rice

Always wash AND soak your rice for at least half an hour in water! This is really important and often overlooked. In a pulao, you can't drain the rice after cooking therefore you MUST soak it to remove the starches that will cause the rice to be clumpy.

Tips for spices

What spices should I be using for pulao?

Pulao is quite forgiving when it comes to omitting spices. But if you do make pulao often, or do love a deeply flavoured pulao, I'd highly recommend stocking up on these.

Using powdered spices in pulao

Using powdered spices is big no from me. They tend to become gritty in the rice - to get the same depth of flavour you get from using whole spices, you'd be adding A LOT of powdered spices in, which would lead to the powders literally covering the rice grain, and darkening the colour.

Dealing with the annoying whole spices

One of the best things I've ever picked up is to tie all the whole spices into a muslin cloth when making a Pulao. This so much quicker than picking them all out by hand or straining the broth. It's also much more pleasant than biting into a whole cardamom when eating! You can use any clean cloth that has permeability, but muslin works best!

Salt ratio

A general rule of thumb, 1 teaspoon of salt per 1 cup of rice. However you will also have to factor in the 2nd component. After you've added the water, your best call is to take a taste of the water. It should be slightly salty.

Steaming the rice ('dum')

When do I know it's time to steam?

Once you have added the water and it is cooking, when the water has been mostly absorbed by the rice (there will still be moisture visible though) and rice is about 80% cooked, you will need to turn the heat down to the lowest possible and cover the rice with a tightly fitted lid for about 20 minutes. This process is called dum in Urdu and just refers to the steaming process the rice is undergoing.

Best practices for steaming

• Use a tight fitted lid.
• Ideally, you should line your lid with a clean tea towel. This helps absorb more moisture from the rice during the steaming process, leading to more defined, khilla khilla rice grains. If you do not have a clean tea towel, you can also line your lid with foil or cling film as a second best alternative.
• You really want to bring the heat down to LOW. As low as it'll go. If you go a bit too high, you risk burning the bottom layer, so if you are in a rush, please don't think turning the heat up a notch will speed things up.
• Placing a flat pan, like a tava under the pot of steaming rice is also considered good practice because it prevents the bottom layer of rice from drying out - or worse, burning.

How long does the steaming take?

The steaming process is ESSENTIAL for infusing all those deep flavours from the broth DEEP into the rice grain. A longer steam time = more time for that flavour party to get going 🎉.

As an absolute, complete bare minimum: 10 minutes. Ideally? 15-20 minutes. And conversely, I wouldn't want to go over 20-25 minutes, because too much steaming time certainly can overcook the rice. And we don't like mushy pulao.

Tips for serving and garnishing

Pulao is traditionally served garnished with crispy fried onions. You can crisp them up yourself by spreading them on a paper towel and allowing them to cool. Please fry these onions yourself for optimal flavour! Don't use the pre-packaged fried onions, I find the flavour to be dismal compared to freshly fried onions.

You can serve your Pulao with any raita or chutney of your preference, plain yogurt, a simple kachumbar salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, onions finely chopped) or any salad really, raw onions (soak these in vinegar for 30 minutes best results!). Often, a Chicken or Meat Pulao is served with Shami Kebabs in Pakistani cuisine.

Some great pairings: Shami Kebab, Aloo Gosht, Korma

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I hope you've found this read useful and helps you go on to experiment with your pulao cooking. Do you have any tips or tricks? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear how you guys like to make your rice!