Published: September 15, 2015 Last Modified: November 30, 2019 Freda Dias

Palak Paneer | How To Make Palak Paneer | Indian Spinach & Cottage Cheese Curry

Palak paneer, a popular North Indian spinach dish, is a luscious spinach gravy adorned with melt in the mouth paneer cheese. Here is a step by step recipe to make creamy palak paneer.

WHAT IS PALAK PANEER?

To put it in simple terms, palak paneer is an Indian spinach curry with soft and creamy paneer chunks. Spinach is palak & paneer is Indian cottage cheese.

HOW TO MAKE INDIAN PALAK PANEER?

There are numerous ways of preparing palak paneer | spinach paneer curry. This Indian spinach and cheese dish is quite popular across restaurants in India. This recipe is adapted from my Mom’s style of making palak paneer which she learnt from her colleague.

Making palak paneer involves preparing palak puree and preparing the masala base for the final gravy.

The base masala is the regular onion-tomato masala, to which the spinach paste is added and cooked. This curry isn’t heavily spiced, spinach pretty much dominates this dish with a subtle hint of flavor from the spices. Mom makes palak paneer without tomatoes, I add or else skip it sometimes. It still tastes delicious either ways.

The addition of cream mellows down the bitterness of the spinach to an extent, so it’s worth adding just a little.

You can make a plain palak curry recipe too, simply omit the paneer or use something else like boiled chickpeas for palak chana or fried potatoes for aloo palak.

You can also make a vegan palak paneer by swapping the paneer with tofu and the cream with puréed cashew nuts or puréed tofu.

HOW TO MAKE PALAK PUREE FOR PALAK PANEER?

Palak puree recipe is a simple process of blanching the spinach leaves and pureeing it. The spinach leaves are submerged in hot, boiling water for about 30 seconds to 1 minute or until it shrinks and wilts.

You then need to immediately drain the water and transfer the spinach to a bowl with cold water. This process stops the cooking process and also brightens the color of the spinach. You can also freeze spinach after blanching if you intend using it later.

SAAG PANEER VS PALAK PANEER | WHAT IS SAAG?

Many people confuse the two. Palak is spinach, whereas saag can be any kind of leafy green veggies such as mustard greens, fenugreek, kale, turnip greens etc or a combination of greens, including spinach. So you can basically use this same recipe to make saag paneer, use a combination of seasonal fresh leafy greens.

I love incorporating palak in our day to day diet in the form of salads, or palak rice for the kids, some sort of croquettes like this soy spinach cutlets, palak kadhi, dal palak, palak poori and much more.

For now let’s learn how to make an easy, luscious and creamy Palak paneer curry, hope you enjoy it 🙂

ENJOYED THIS EASY PALAK PANEER RECIPE? THEN YOU MAY ALSO LIKE THESE POPULAR PUNJABI PANEER RECIPES

STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS TO MAKE PUNJABI PALAK PANEER RECIPE | SPINACH PANEER

1.Heat water in a pan, bring it to a boil, add a little salt. When the water starts boiling, add the washed spinach leaves, push them with a spoon to submerge all the leaves in water. Blanch for about 1 minute or until the spinach leaves have wilted.

2.Strain the spinach leaves in a colander, collect the spinach stock for later use. Transfer the drained spinach leaves into a bowl of cold water with ice cubes. This process prevents the spinach from further cooking, and also helps in retaining the lush green color of the spinach.

3.In an electric grinder/mixer, make a puree of the blanched spinach, along with green chillies. Add some of the spinach stock if required to make a smooth paste.

4.Heat oil plus butter in a heavy bottomed pan, add cumin seeds, let it splutter. Add bay leaf, cinnamon and cloves, sauté until aromatic.

5.Next add chopped onion, and sauté over medium heat until golden brown.

6.Add ginger garlic paste, sauté until fragrant.

7.Add chopped tomatoes, cook until it turns mushy and leaves the sides of the pan.

8.Add turmeric and red chilli powder. Sauté for another minute.

9.Next, add the prepared spinach puree, and mix it well.

10.Add a cup of the spinach stock and add it to the pan (adjust as per desired gravy consistency), stir well, season with salt and a pinch of sugar. Check salt accordingly as we have already added in the 1st step. Cook the spinach for another 5 minutes.

11.Add the cubed paneer, stir gently, let the paneer cook for another minute or two.

13.Sprinkle garam masala, and kasoori methi. Mix well.

14.Add the cream, mix it gently.

15.For the second tempering- Heat ghee in a small pan, when it hot add cumin seeds, once it crackles, take the pan off the heat. Let it cool down for 30 seconds, then add red chilli powder and hing. Mix well and immediately pour this tempering over the spinach gravy. Switch off the heat. To garnish, drop small spoonfuls of cream, and a few ginger juliennes, if desired. Serve with roti / naan / chapathi or jeera (cumin) rice.

NOTES

I’ve used baby spinach for this recipe. You may use regular spinach too.
For a dry palak paneer recipe, skip adding the spinach stock. Cook the palak paste for a few minutes over medium-low heat. If it looks too dry add a couple of tablespoons of the spinach stock. Then add the paneer cubes, cover and cook for 2-3 minutes, and finish it off with garam masala, kasoori methi, and some cream if you like.
Recipe updated along with new pictures.

HOW TO MAKE PALAK PANEER AT HOME?