Palak (Spinach) Paneer
January 5th, 2007 filed under Paneer (Indian Cheese)
Palak Paneer is creamy spinach with paneer (indian home made paneer). This is a very popular with youngsters and served in every indian resturant. The creamy texture of spinach with paneer is a very good combination.
Serves 4.
Ingredients:
- 1 10 oz package of chopped frozen spinach or 4 cups of fresh finely chopped spinach
- 1/3 lb paneer
- 2 medium tomatoes, pureed
- 1 teaspoon chopped ginger
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder (dhania)
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder (haldi)
- 1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin seed (jeera)
- Pinch of asafetida (hing)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- 2 tablespoons of whole wheat flour
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 tomato thinly sliced to garnish
Method:
- If using frozen spinach thaw and blend it just for a minute so spinach has a creamy texture but without becoming pasty.
- blend the tomatoes and ginger to make puree.
- Mix coriander, turmeric, and red chili with tomato puree and set aside.
- Mix whole-wheat flour with heavy cream and set aside.
- Cube the paneer in about half inch pieces and deep fry them on medium high heat just for few minutes so paneer become very light gold in color, take paneer out on paper towel so extra oil can be absorbed.
- Heat the oil in a saucepan. Test the heat by adding one cumin seed to the oil; if it cracks right away it is ready.
- Add hing and cumin seed. After cumin seeds crack, add the tomato puree mixture, and let it cook for a few minutes until the tomato puree is about half in volume.
- Add the spinach, and let it cook on low medium heat for about 10 minutes covered.
- Add heavy cream mixture and let this cook another four to five minutes.
- Add paneer and fold it gently with spinach and let it simmer for a 2-3 minutes. Pot should remain covered until the cooking is finished, otherwise the spinach will splatter.
- Transfer the spinach to a serving dish and spread the tomato slices over the top, and cover the dish so tomato slices get tender with the steam from the spinach.
Suggestion
You can replace the heavy cream with 1 1/2 cups of milk.
Thanks from Baton Rouge, Louisiana! I shared this with my family and this was our favorite recipe of yours so far, especially for my little sister.
Hi. I am a vegan from sweden i really like your recepies this site is added to my favorites in my browser for now. Go Green
thank you for this recipe.
I am an amateur!When do I add the salt in the receipe?
You can add the salt at step 8 when you add the spinach. Jaya
Hi Jaya,
Please do not post any comments/suggestions in response to other viewers’ questions. Your response, regardless of whether helpful or not, is unsolicited. The only replies that matter are those of Manjula. This is, after all, Manjulaskitchen.com.
- Swapna
Please notice that Priya posted her question TWO weeks ago with no answer.
Further, this is an OPEN FORUM and all readers are allowed to comment on each other’s questions!
also Swapna, there have been TWO OTHER posters with the screen-name “Jaya” just as an FYI. Duplicate screen-names are not blocked from registering on this site.
Hi Jaya,
For the forum, please select “Forum” on the menu above so that this space below each recipe is utilized solely for correspondence between Mrs. Jain and the visitors to this site, as intended.
Thanks for your cooperation.
- Avanti
Munjulaaunty , r u by any chance a Jain because I am looking at a lot of ur recipies and I see that in your gravys u don’t use
onions and garlic
Wonderful! This was always my preferred dish in Indian Restaurants, but the one that I made today using your recipe was at least as good as them!!! Thanks a lot for all the work you put in here (I will try other recipes too), and greetings from Germany!
This was delicious – I used my own garam masala instead of just cumin and as we couldn’t find hing, sauteed onion for a few minutes over medium heat with the garam masala, added 2 smashed and minced cloves of garlic for 1 minute. Then added the tomato puree. I didn’t realize the chilis we had were very spicy indonesian hot chilis so the dish was quite fiery but fantastic!
Also I didn’t have time to make paneer and the shop didn’t have any fresh cheese – so we used ricotta saltata and it was fabulous.
Thank you so much!!
Dear Manjula
Just made this recipe and it was superb, the best palak paneer I’ve ever tasted. I replaced the cream with milk (didn’t have cream – and also for health reasons!)
I’ve tried a number of your recipes and they are consistently excellent – many thanks!
Chris
hello aunty,i really loved your recipe,but the spinach we get here is frozen n turns bitter n dark green in color when i make palak paneer…..
any other option?????
This was SO GOOD! I just made this, but used a can of diced tomotoes that I put through the blender to puree. I also made the homemade paneer on your site and put this in the recipe. Superb!! I’ve been to India and love the food and have to say this is better than any restaurant version of palak paneer that I’ve had anywhere in the US! I’m going to make all of your recipes
Thank you!