Palak Paneer is one of the most popular paneer dishes.
Paneer (Indian cottage cheese) is cooked with spinach and spices in this creamy and flavorful curry.
It pairs well with naan, paratha or jeera rice.
Palak Paneer is such a staple in north India. It’s one of the most commonly made paneer dishes in Indian homes.
🔷 What is Palak Paneer?
Palak= spinach (in Hindi)
Paneer= Indian cottage cheese
So, this curry is made with spinach and Indian cottage cheese.
The spinach is blanched and then pureed. It’s then cooked with spices and simmered on low heat with paneer.
The cream is added to cut down on the bitterness of the spinach leaves and also make it rich.
If you don’t want to add cream, you can also use yoghurt or milk in place.
🔷 How to Make Palak Paneer?
Everyone has their own way of making this dish. It uses basic spices and simple ingredients.
For the curry, first, blanch the spinach and then puree it.
Once the spinach is boiled, add it to ice-cold water. This helps in retaining the colour of the spinach.
The curry is made of the spinach puree, tomato, onion, ginger and garlic. Use a lot of garlic because spinach and garlic go really well together.
However, if you are not a fan, you may cut down on it or skip it altogether. Also, you can skip the tomatoes if you want. It will still come out great!
If you use store-bought paneer, just remember to soak it in hot water for 15 to 20 minutes and then use in the recipe.
The store-bought paneer will be really soft then.
A lot of people like pan-frying their paneer before adding it to the curry.
Since spinach is a little bitter, you can use some cream and sugar to cut the bitterness.
You can also add little sugar, it’s totally optional though.
🔷 Method
1- To a pot of boiling water, add a little salt and then spinach leaves to it. Blanch the spinach leaves for 2 to 3 minutes until wilted.
2- Take them out and put them in ice-cold water. This helps the leaves in retaining their green colour.
3- To a blender, add the blanched spinach along with tomato, 3 cloves of garlic, ginger and green chilli.
4- Puree to a smooth paste and set aside.
5- Heat a pan on medium heat. Once hot, add the oil and then add the remaining 2 cloves of chopped garlic. Sauté for few minutes until it starts changing colour.
6- Then add the chopped onions.
7- Cook the onion for 2 to 3 minutes until soft and translucent.
8- Add in the prepared spinach puree and mix. Also, add around 1/2 cup water at the point.
Cover the pan and let it cook for 10 minutes on medium heat. The spinach will bubble a lot. Stir at regular intervals to avoid sticking at the bottom.
9- Once the spinach is cooked, add the garam masala, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and salt. Mix and cook for 1 minute.
You may also add ½ teaspoon of sugar at this point if you like.
10- Then add the heavy cream and mix.
11- Stir in the paneer and mix. Let the curry simmer for 3 to 4 minutes.
12- Switch off the flame, add lemon juice and Kasuri methi and mix.
