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Palak Paneer
Spinach with cubes of fresh cheese
🔥 Intermediate🍛 Main Course🥛 Vegetarian🕑 40 min
The classic almost everyone in Germany has ordered at an Indian restaurant at some point. The point where it goes wrong at home is always the same: the spinach gets cooked too long and turns from bright green to olive brown.
🔥 Intermediate: Several things happening at once, or a dough to manage. It clicks the second time.
Prep15 min
Cook time25 min
Total40 min
Serves4 portions
Contains:
MilkTree Nuts
Refers to the recipe as written here. Store-bought ingredients may carry traces — please check the packet.
Ingredients
0 of 11✅ All set to cook!
Method
0 of 6🎉 All done — enjoy!
- Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the spinach with the chilies for 90 seconds — no longer.
- Immediately shock it in ice water. This one step alone is why the dish stays green.
- Squeeze the spinach well and blend with the chilies into a coarse paste. Not completely smooth — it should keep some texture.
- Fry the paneer cubes in 1 tbsp ghee until golden brown all over, remove and place in warm salted water. This keeps them soft.
- In the same pot, fry the cumin, then the onion until golden brown. Add the ginger-garlic paste for 1 minute, then the tomato and cook for 5 minutes until soft.
- Stir in the spinach paste, season with salt, and simmer for just 4–5 minutes. Fold in the paneer, cream and garam masala, and turn off the heat.
Tips
- Blanch and shock — don't simmer it along with everything else. A palak paneer that simmers for 20 minutes turns brown and tastes like canned spinach.
- The warm salted water for the paneer is a restaurant trick: fried paneer otherwise turns rubbery.
- Vegan: replace the paneer with firm pressed tofu, and the cream with cashew paste.
Shop the Ingredients
Everything for this recipe is available from us in Munich — in store or delivered.
