Palak Paneer – Cottage cheese with spinach gravy is a tasty curry / side dish for chapathi or roti / hot rice. Cottage cheese / paneer can either be purchased from stores or prepared freshly at home by curdling the milk. Palak paneer is a popular Indian curry, largely cooked in the Northern part. It is basically paneer cooked in palak gravy. There are different ways of preparing the same dish. Few people prefer the gravy with cut and boiled spinach as is, whereas few prefer a smooth gravy by grinding all the ingredients except paneer. I prefer the latter and today’s recipe is for the same. It is the simplest palak paneer recipe with bare minimum masala / spices.
Palak Paneer goes well with any kind of chapathi / roti or even with hot rice. So, what are we waiting for, let’s get started with this simple, yet delicious recipe.
More Paneer recipes :
Dates Paneer Peda
Total time: 35 minutes
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Ingredients:
Spinach / Palak: 1 bunch
Tomato: 2 (Medium)
Onion: 2(medium)
Paneer(cubed): 150 grams
Green chilli: 1
Garam masala: 1 tsp.
Salt: To taste
Oil: To fry chopped onion
Ghee: To fry the paneer cubes
Pepper powder: ½ tsp.
Sugar – ½ tsp.
Method:
- Wash and pressure cook spinach leaves with green chilli in little water on medium flame for a single whistle. Switch off the flame and let it cool
- Meanwhile, soak paneer cubes in water for 15 minutes
- In a mixer grind cut tomatoes and keep aside
- In a pan, heat oil and fry chopped onions till golden brown. Remove from heat
- In the mixer containing ground tomatoes add the fried onions and grind again. Keep aside
- In a small pan, add little ghee and slightly fry paneer cubes in it and keep aside
- In a mixer, grind the cooled spinach leaves
- In a pan, add the tomato-onion paste and bring it to boil
- Add the spinach-chilli paste and continue heating on medium flame
- Now, Add garam masala and pepper powder and continue to cook in low flame
- Add little salt and sugar. Mix well
- Finally, add the paneer cubes and cook for a few minutes and remove from flame
- Dress it with thick cream and serve it with fresh rotis/chapathis or hot rice
Palak paneer is ready to serve!!!
Note :
You may add the cream while cooking, if you like, before adding the paneer cubes
Palak Paneer stories:
Today’s recipe is a customised version of the palak paneer recipe that my ex-colleague and a good friend shared with me a few years ago. Getting back to old memories, we were a group of 4 friends who used to work together, lunch together and chit chat together. We were part of one large team working in the client location. Among us 4, this friend of mine happened to be the best cook. So, I used to take tips from her whenever I wanted to try out something new during those days. Though I hardly knew anything about cooking, I always wanted to cook!!!
Around the same time, my husband was abroad for his MBA. It was Christmas time and it was ‘home calling’ for him. So, I was all so excited and was checking with her for some good recipes for the dishes of his choice. Though, I am not very fond of paneer, my husband loves paneer dishes. My friend gave a simple recipe for palak paneer along with few other recipes. It turned out great the very first time that I tried. Further on, I enhanced it as per my convenience, but the credit for the base recipe goes to that friend of mine 🙂
Neatly captured steps..