Palak Paneer Recipe

Name: Palak Paneer
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 2
Ingredients: leaf spinach fresh 500 g; Salt 3 pinches; Water 300 ml; Sunflower oil 3 tbs; chili peppers 1-2 pc; fresh garlic cloves 2 pc; onion 1 pc; tomatoes 3 pc; Water 80 ml; brown sugar 1-2 tsp; Caraway 1/2 tsp; cloves 4 pc; Ginger 1 tsp; cinnamon 1 bar; Garam Masala 1-2 tsp; fenugreek 1/2 tsp; cardamon 1/2 tsp; butter 2 tbs; Paneer 200 g; Basmati rice 200 g; Water 350-400 ml; Salt 1 tsp; edible dried flowers 1 tsp; Cashewkerne 1 tbs; papadam 6 pc; raita 200 g; spiced tea 2 glas

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Palak Paneer recipe picture — Palak Paneer Recipe Image © Thomas Sixt

Author:
Thomas Sixt is a chef, food photographer, cookbook author and blogger.
Here he shares recipes, answers cooking questions and helps with cooking.

My original Palak Paneer recipe is presented in this post. Healthy vegetarian cuisine, the classic on every menu in the Indian restaurant once cooked by yourself.

We love Indian food and my wife is crazy about spinach with cheese. The spices and fragrances of the dishes sweep me away every time, even as a cook. No other regional cuisine offers this variety.

The name is composed of the parts “Palak” = Hindi for spinach and “Paneer” = Indian cream cheese.

For me, green spinach is important on the plate, gray cooked I do not like this dish.

Here I show you step by step a quick and easy preparation that will put a smile on your face. Have fun in the kitchen and enjoy!

Table of Contents

1. Palak Paneer Recipe
2. Tip 1: Fine Spinach and Indian Spice Cuisine come separately to the Wedding
3. Tip 2: Buy paneer or make it yourself?
4. Tip 3: Exciting supplements
5. Calories and Nutritional Values
6. More ideas with vegetables

1. Palak Paneer Recipe

I present my step-by-step instructions plus video for the perfect spinach dish to get you started. Tips for completing your Indian cuisine I’ll give you the recipe afterwards.

By the way, you can send me a cooking question directly via the comment function!

Palak Paneer

Cooked, photographed and written down by chef Thomas Sixt.

Servings 2

Calories 559

Total Time 25 Min.

Preparation Time 10 Min.

Cook Time 15 Min.

Simple guide for the preparation of Palak Paneer.

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Ingredients

Spinach (Palak)
500	g	leaf spinach fresh (I cook here with young spinach)
3	pinches	Salt
300	ml	Water
Sauce with spices
3	tbs	Sunflower oil
1-2	pc	chili peppers
2	pc	fresh garlic cloves
1	pc	onion
3	pc	tomatoes (small-medium)
80	ml	Water
1-2	tsp	brown sugar
1/2	tsp	Caraway
4	pc	cloves
1	tsp	Ginger (fine diced or grated)
1	bar	cinnamon
1-2	tsp	Garam Masala
1/2	tsp	fenugreek (optional)
1/2	tsp	cardamon (optional)
2	tbs	butter
Paneer (Frischkäse)
200	g	Paneer (I use paneer from the Asia Shop)
Rice
200	g	Basmati rice (or jasmine rice)
350-400	ml	Water
1	tsp	Salt
Decoration
1	tsp	edible dried flowers
1	tbs	Cashewkerne (I roast in the pan beforehand)
Supplements
6	pc	papadam (I fry ready-made papadams in oil)
200	g	raita (see tip 3, is selfmade)
2	glas	spiced tea (I supplement with fresh whole milk)

Instruction

Preparations

Ingredients for Palak Paneer — Palak Paneer recipe ingredients prepared on a kitchen board

Prepare Ingredients

The ingredients at a glance: Spinach, paneer, onion, garlic, ginger, butter, oil, cashew and spices.

Roasting cashews — Cashew roasting in an Indian wok

Toast cashews

Toast the cashews in a pan with a little oil.

Finely dice the garlic. — Cut the garlic into fine cubes.

Cut garlic

Cut the garlic into fine cubes. Please do not press garlic – pressed garlic tends to taste bitter.

onion ginger garlic — Prepared onion, ginger and garlic cubes in a bowl

Dice aromats

Dice the onion and ginger very finely.

Prepare Chili

Halve the chilli peppers.

Slicing paneer cheese on the kitchen board

Cut Cheese

Cut the cheese into approx. 1 cm cubes.

Paneer cheese in bowl — Prepared paneer cheese in the bowl

Cheese aside

Put the cheese aside.

It is added to the hot sauce with spinach at the end.

Prepare rice

Boil rice — Cooked rice in the rice cooker

Prepare rice

We prepare our rice in advance in parallel.

I use a rice cooker here.

This needs 1 part rice and 1.5 parts water.

In the pot you need 1 part rice and 2 parts water!

Don’t forget the salt for seasoning.

Prepare spinach

Clean spinach

Clean the fresh young spinach.

Blanch the spinach — Spinach when blanching in boiling salted water

Cook Spinach

Cook the spinach briefly for 2-3 minutes.

Cold spinach

Drain the cooked spinach and rinse briefly with very cold water.

This keeps the spinach green.

Prepare sauce

Roast the spices — Toast the spices for the base of Palak Paneer in a wok.

Roast spices

Heat the cloves, cumin and cinnamon with the oil in a pan or wok.

Onion and spices in a wok — Roast the onion, garlic, ginger and spices in a wok.

Add aromates

Add the chilli, onion, garlic and ginger and fry. Add more spices such as garam masala, sugar and salt.

Prepare tomatoes

Prepare the tomatoes and cut them into small pieces.

Sliced tomatoes in a wok — When sautéing the tomatoes in the wok with the spices. This creates the tasty basis for Palak Paneer

Add tomatoes

Add the tomato pieces to the pan.

Add water

Add a little water and heat.

Cook palak paneer sauce — cook the palak paneer sauce

Cook sauce

After a good 7 minutes of boiling down, our sauce base is ready.

Please fish out the cloves and cinnamon stick!

Bringing cheese and spinach together

Mix up the spinach — the blanched and dried spinach while mixing.

Mix spinach

Finely puree our wonderfully bright green cooked spinach.

Palak paneer sauce with butter — Refine the plak paneer sauce with butter

Season sauce

Add the butter to the sauce base.

Add cheese

Add cheese cubes so that they also heat up.

Add the spinach to the paneer — Add the mixed spinach to the paneer cheese with sauce.

Add spinach

Then add the pureed spinach and stir everything together with a wooden spoon.

When all the ingredients are hot enough, remove the pan or wok from the heat.

Dressing

Serve

Serve the palak paneer with roasted cashew nuts.

Garnish the rice with dried edible flowers.

Prepare raita with yoghurt, cucumber, mint and coriander and serve.

Enjoy with fried papadam and spiced tea!

Video

I would like to briefly consider the roasting of the spices here. Roasting the spices is very important for the authentic taste. A highly heated wok always tends to be very hot, so please be careful! You definitely want to create roasted aromas, which you can then deglaze with tomatoes. You can let the spices steep in the sauce for a good 20 minutes so that the wonderful aromas can develop. Good luck!

2. Tip 1: Fine Spinach and Indian Spice Cuisine come separately to the Wedding

2.1 Spinach preparation

fresh young spinach
water
salt

2.2 Sauce

fresh young garlic
onion
tomato
ginger
fresh chilli peppers
oil
a little sugar and salt
cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, cumin, garam masala, fenugreek

After a short cooking time, puree the spinach with a hand blender and then add to the finished sauce preparation to mix.

add spinach to paneer — Add the mixed spinach to the cheese and sauce.

Please prepare the spinach and sauce separately at first. After pureeing the spinach, the royal children only come together.
Chef Thomas Sixt on Prince Spinach and Princess Sauce

3. Tip 2: Buy paneer or make it yourself?

This beautiful dish is made with Indian cream cheese. You can find it in the refrigerated section of the Asia Shop. This is how I made it.

But if you don’t have a shop that sells them, you can make your own paneer in three to four hours. It goes like this:

Prepare 2 litres of fresh whole milk and 2 lemons.
Boil the milk with a pinch of salt. Squeeze the lemons.
Prepare a deep bowl with a sieve. Place a fresh kitchen towel in the sieve.
Take the boiled milk off the heat and add the lemon juice while stirring.
When the milk has become sufficiently fluffy and crumbly, pour the mixture through the kitchen towel and sieve so that the liquid drips out of the bottom into the bowl.
Close the cloth at the top. Turn the cloth with the mixture out tightly and weigh the mixture down with a small pot or bowl.
Let the liquid continue to squeeze out for about 2 hours.
The mixture can then be placed in the refrigerator for about 1 hour to become even firmer.

Cut the paneer into approx. 1 cm cubes for the spinach. The cubes conveniently do not melt in the hot spinach and retain their wonderful shape.

Palak paneer — Wonderful palak paneer served with roasted cashews.

4. Tip 3: Exciting supplements

Jasmine or basmati rice are suitable as a side dish. Instead of rice, naan, roti (both Indian flatbreads) or papadam (lentil flatbread) are also delicious.