Have some extra spinach or looking for Indian vibes? Let’s make this Palak Paneer recipe with a healthy peace of mind!

Palak paneer is a vegetarian dish consisting of paneer which is a fresh cheese, sort of like cottage cheese and thick paste of spinach puree, called palak, in many Indian languages. So Palak paneer loosely translates to Spinach puree with Cottage cheese but thanks to a bunch of spices and herbs, flavor wise it’s a bit further from a what it sounds like.

Sure, it takes a bit of an effort to prepare everything from scratch but once we get over the initial skill barriers, preparing palak paneer is quite easy.

Making paneer requires most of the heavy lifting but once it’s done and the weights are lifted off, making palak paneer is a breeze. If we can get our hands-on ready-made paneer then the whole process will become dead simple but if we make big batches then freeze the sliced-up pieces, our troubles will be reduced to the level of chicken Caesar salad.

None the less, palak paneer will most likely never achieve the popularity of burgers, donuts, or French fries but the question still remains, why not give it a try?

Ingredients

12 cups / 350g Spinach
1 medium / 150g Tomato
3 cloves / 9g Garlic (whole)
1 inch / 2.5cm Ginger (peeled, grated)
2 tablespoons / 30ml Cooking oil
1 large / 200g Onion (finely cut)
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt or to taste
2 cloves / 6g Garlic (finely cut or crushed)
1 cup / 240ml Water
1 teaspoon / 2g Garam masala
¼ teaspoon / 0.8g Turmeric powder
½ teaspoon / 0.8g Chili powder or to taste
2 tablespoons / 30ml Heavy cream
8 oz / 220g Paneer cut into cubes
1 tablespoon / 15ml Lemon juice (optional)

How to make Palak paneer

First we need to blanch (quickly boil and cool) the spinach. Boil water and salt then add the spinach leaves.
Once the leaves are wilted, about 2 – 3 minutes take them out with a sieve.
Cool them off under running cold water or in an ice bath.
Add spinach, tomato, 3 cloves whole garlic and grated ginger into a food processor and puree them. Grating ginger may not be necessary if we have a food processor that is able to cope with it.
Heat oil in a pan to high then saute (stir-fry) finely cut onion and salt until glassy / translucent color, about 3 – 5 minutes.
Add garlic and saute (stir-fry) until the onions starts to change color, about 5 – 10 minutes.
Mix in the spinach puree and some water.
Cover with a lid and simmer it on low to medium heat for 10 minutes. It will bubble and splatter but the lid should keep it in place. Stir regularly to avoid sticking.
Add garam masala, turmeric powder, chili, cream and more salt if necessary. Mix it well then remove from heat.
On a tablespoon of oil sear cubed paneer on at least two sides.
Mix paneer into the spinach puree. Leave some out for decoration. Add optional lemon juice if desired.