Palak Paneer Recipe is a healthy nutritious and delicious recipe from North India. This creamy spinach recipe with paneer cubes in it tastes yummy with most Indian bread and rice.
About Palak Paneer Recipe?
Palak Paneer is one of the most delicious North Indian curries. It is a healthy spinach-based gravy, made with spinach puree and cottage cheese, seasoned with fresh ginger, garlic, and spices.
Palak Paneer Recipe goes well along with roti, paratha, puri, naan, fried rice or with simple steamed rice as well. There are a lot of versions of this recipe.
Even if you use fewer spices in this recipe, still it tastes yummy. Like the one I have prepared, while I was on Low Carb Diet. Low Carb Palak Paneer Recipe tastes awesome with the Low Carb Naan Recipe.
In this Palak Paneer recipe, I have not blanched the spinach. Instead of blanching, I like to saute the palak for a bright green color.
So, if you want to get the real taste of palak paneer, make it without blanching. It will be more delicious. Just give it a try.
And one more thing, I didn’t use the cream for this recipe, as I didn’t feel the need for it. And of course, I try to avoid fancy ingredients in my recipes so that even a bachelor and newlywed can make the recipe easily. But of course, you can add some if you want after you switch off the gas when the palak paneer gets cooked well.
Some More Palak Recipe you Might Want to Try:
Basic Ingredients used to make Palak Paneer Recipe
Spinach: Try to use fresh and small leaves. The quality of palak, makes a lot of difference in the taste of this dish. But don’t worry, if you don’t find small leaves, you can still make it.
Paneer: Try to use fresh paneer or you can use homemade paneer also. To make this curry vegan, you can replace paneer with tofu.
Dry Fenugreek Leaves: – I love adding dried fenugreek leaves in palak paneer. Fenugreek leaves are often used as an herb or seasoning in Indian food, but it’s not a requirement.
Whole Spices: – I have used the cinnamon stick, black cardamom, cumin seeds, and bay leaf here. Whole spices add a lot of flavors, but you can skip them too.
Other Ingredients: To make palak paneer you would also need some onion, tomato, ginger and garlic.
Palak Paneer Recipe
Ingredients
- 500 gm Spinach cleaned and washed
- 300 gm Paneer, Cottage Cheese cut into cubes
- 2 Onion finely chopped
- 2 Tomato finely chopped
- 1 tsp Garlic crushed
- 1 tsp Ginger crushed
- 2 nos Green Chilli finely chopped
- 4 tbsp Cooking Oil and also some extra oil to fry paneer
- 1 tsp Cumin Seeds
- 2 pcs Bay Leaf
- 1 pcs Black Cardamom
- 1 pcs Cinnamon Stick
- 1 tsp Coriander Powder
- 1 tsp Cumin Powder
- 1 tsp Turmeric Powder
- 1 tsp Garam Masala Powder
- 1 tsp Chilli Powder
- 1/2 tbsp Kasturi Methi Leaves
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Add spinach in a pan or kadhai and let it cook uncovered on a medium flame. Let it cool down.
- Once it gets cold put the leaves in a blender, make a fine and smooth puree and keep it aside.
- Heat oil in a frying pan and deep fry or shallow fry the paneer pieces in oil. (paneer tend to burn off soon, carefully toss them on medium flame until light golden color and remove to a plate).
- Take out extra oil and in the same oil and kadhai when it is hot add cumin seeds and bay leaf.
- When it starts spluttering add crushed garlic and green chilli.
- After a few seconds add chopped onion and fry until golden brown.
- Add chopped tomato, mix well. Cover and cook over low heat for 5-7 minutes, stirring in between.
- In the meanwhile take a bowl add, ginger, turmeric powder, coriander powder, red chilli powder, salt, slightly crushed cinnamon sticks and badi elaichi. (You can add cinnamon stick and black cardamom in the beginning also, while adding cumin seeds).
- Now mix all the ingredients with little water.
- Add all the mixed contents of the bowl in a pan and fry, stirring constantly on medium flame, covering in between for about 10-12 min or, until the paste turns a light brown color and the oil separates.
- Now add paneer cubes and little water and cook for few minutes.
- Add the spinach puree and little water as required and cook for another 5-7 minutes.
- Add sukhi kasturi methi, mix well and after a minute or two, then switch off the gas.
- You can add a small cube of butter or some fresh cream to it, if you wish.
- So the yummy Palak Paneer Recipe is ready to eat.It goes really well with hot chapatis, paranthas, naan and fried rice.
Notes
Nutrition
- Uniquely designed blunt PoundingBlade with thick edges which replicates pounding effect on dry ingredients, thus giving authentic texture and taste
- Completely hands free operation with unique lid-locks and strong suction feet for added stability
- High quality stainless steel blades for high performance wet, dry and chutney grinding, Cable management for easy handling and storage
- AddConcealed bush for contamination free mixing and grinding
- High grade stainless steel jars, Ergonomic design of jar handles for easy operations
Frequently Asked Questions about Palak Paneer Recipe
Is it necessary to Blanch the spinach before you puree?
Blanching your spinach helps give palak paneer a vibrant green colour. Blanched spinach also gives the spinach puree a creamier consistency.
But it’s not necessary. To maintain the green color simply cook the palak uncovered. But in case you want to blanch, you need to:
Heat water with a tsp of salt in a large pot.
Clean the spinach and wash it thoroughly under running water.
Once the water comes to boil, switch off the gas, add spinach and let the palak leaves sit in the water for about 1-2 minutes.
After that, using a pasta tong, take out the leaves.
Immediately add the palak in a pan containing ice cold water, you can also add some ice cubes in the water. Let it be in the cold water for a minute.
Drain the water, and the spinach is ready to blend.
Why is my Palak Paneer Bitter?
Spinach has a very peculiar bitter taste. This taste often comes due to the presence of oxalic acid found in spinach. For cutting down the bitterness of the spinach leaves, you may add fresh cream to this recipe. The cream is added to cut down on the bitterness of the spinach leaves and make them rich.
Does Palak Paneer increase weight?
Palak paneer is everyone’s favourite and different people cook it using different spices and flavours. Just remember to cook it in less oil. And paneer is high in protein, which makes it a great choice for weight loss.
How to make Vegan Version of Palak Paneer?
If you want to make a vegan version, replace the paneer with tofu. And the cream with cashew cream, coconut cream, or almond cream or just skip the cream altogether.
If I want to omit the tomato, will that effect the taste much?
You can skip the tomatoes and squeeze some lemon juice while serving. It will give the same taste as an omitted tomato.
Is it necessary to fry Paneer?
It’s not. you can add paneer just like that also, after adding palak puree. The reason I fry because I love fried paneer in it. And second, after frying I don’t need to cook paneer or tofu in the gravy as they are already cooked. So, it’s a win-to-win situation. 🙂
You Might Also Want to Try:
Bhindi Masala Curry Recipe
Matar Paneer Recipe
Creamy Spinach Curry
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