Calories and protein in a plate of chicken biryani, with and without oil and ghee
Also called murgh biryani, dum biryani.
The short answer
1 plate, about 350 g, normal oil and ghee
580 kcal
32 g protein
Fat 21 g · carbs 64 g · fibre 3 g · With meat or fish
Portion: a full home dinner plate. Calculated from USDA FoodData Central
Biryani is rice first. Asking for more chicken and less rice is the simplest way to move a plate toward protein.
With and without oil and ghee
The same 1 plate, changing only the oil for frying the onions and the ghee on the rice. Normal is about 16 g in this portion. A little halves the recipe’s fat and a lot doubles it, so in a portion of the same weight a lot comes out a little under double. These are the four levels the app asks about, with the same numbers.
| Oil and ghee | Added | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 0 g | 460 kcal | 33 g |
| A little | 8 g | 520 kcal | 32 g |
| Normal | 16 g | 580 kcal | 32 g |
| A lot | 30 g | 690 kcal | 30 g |
What moves the number
- Riceabout 250 kcal
- Oil and ghee (the oil for frying the onions and the ghee on the rice)about 140 kcal
- Chickenabout 130 kcal
The recipe behind these numbers
Raw ingredient weights in one 1 plate, scaled from the batch recipe in the Homekcal app’s dish table, with normal oil and ghee. Water, salt and spices add almost no energy but are listed so the recipe is complete. If your version has more of something, the numbers move with it.
What we could not match
Stand ins and assumptions in this recipe that a person still has to check.
- Meat weight is edible meat without bone; bone-in pieces on the plate weigh more than the meat they carry.
- Restaurant versions usually carry much more oil, ghee, butter or cream than this home recipe.
How this was worked out
This is the same dish the Homekcal app logs, from the same table. Each raw ingredient’s weight is multiplied by its per-100 g values in USDA FoodData Central, the batch is added up and divided by the cooked weight it makes. Calories are rounded to the nearest 10 and grams to the nearest gram, because a standard recipe is not your recipe. These are calculated values, not weighed or lab tested meals, and home versions vary a lot.
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2026. fdc.nal.usda.gov. Public domain (CC0).
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Compare with other South Asian dishes
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