Restaurant Style Palak Paneer Recipe

Restaurant Style Palak Paneer Recipe

The Palak Paneer Recipe is very popular during the winter. This was one of my husband’s favourite dishes and now my son likes it as much. My green is fenugreek or methi. To change the taste, you can make variations like Aloo Palak (baby potato spinach) Corn spinach and Mushroom spinach.

My husband liked the Palak Paneer I made but always said the colour wasn’t like the restaurant. I can make it green like at the restaurant. They blanch the spinach but it has a raw smell. I boil the leaves in an open vessel and the colour is green.

This Punjabi Palak Paneer recipe is delicious, smooth & creamy, mildly spicy and easy to make, like most of my recipes. Spinach is a treasure house of vitamins and minerals. My son ate Palak paneer because of the Spinach-eating Popeye with beefed-up muscles.

Recipe for Restaurant-Style Palak Paneer Recipe

Spinach 500 grams

Paneer (cottage cheese) 200 grams

Green chillies 2

1 tsp Ginger garlic chopped

1 onion chopped

2 tomatoes pureed

1 tablespoon ghee or oil

1 tsp red chilli powder

Salt to taste

1 tbsp Fresh cream

4 cups water

½ tsp turmeric powder

Method:

Remove the stems and wash the spinach thoroughly in running water. For a vibrant colour, blanch the spinach leaves in salted boiling water for two minutes. Dunk them in chilled water. Remove and grind to a fine paste along with green chillies.

But I boil the chopped spinach in one cup of water along with green chillies, chopped ginger, garlic and onion. Do not cover the spinach;it will lose its colour and look dull black instead of green. Once the water evaporates, let the spinach cool and grind to a paste in the mixer.

Tip for Soft & Spongy Paneer

Cut the Paneer into one-inch cubes. Boil three cups of water and once it boils, add ½ tsp turmeric and switch off the gas. Put the Paneer cubes in this turmeric water, cover it with a lid and set it aside. This helps keep the Paneer soft and spongy and it does not crumble. The turmeric gives the Paneer a pleasing yellow colour, which looks good with the green spinach. Find the recipe for homemade paneer here.

Heat the ghee in a pan and add the red chilli powder when hot. Then add the pureed tomatoes and sauté until they are done. Add salt and the pureed spinach and simmer for ten minutes. Your spinach is ready to serve. The tomatoes give a tangy flavour to the bland spinach.

Add the Paneer cubes just before serving and mix well. Add a dash of cream to give it a rich flavour. I add cream only when I have guests.

Serve this Palak Paneer Recipe with roti or Nan.

Few more recipes made with paneer-

Paneer Butter Masala recipe

Baked Paneer Biryani or Baked Cottage Cheese Rice

Crispy Paneer Fries

Cottage Cheese or Paneer Quesadillas

 Shahi Kunafa

 Shahi Paneer Pudding

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