Easy Paneer Recipes | Best Paneer Recipe Ideas - Cook with Kushi (2024)

This post is a collection of the best, easiest, and most simple paneer recipes you can make for a healthy, protein-packed vegetarian Indian breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner.

Check out our popular breakfast recipes and Indian vegetarian dinner recipes.

What is paneer?

Paneer or Ponir, or Indian cottage cheese, is a non-aged and non-melting soft cheese prepared by curdling milk with acidic ingredients like lemon juice or vinegar. Most vegetarians in India consume paneer as it is rich in protein and calcium. You can use homemade or store-bought paneer to make paneer dishes.

If you are interested in making paneer at home from scratch, you can check my full-detailed recipe forhomemade paneer here.

Popular paneer recipes

In India, if you visit any restaurant, a small hotel, or a dhaba, you will seepaneer butter masala (paneer makhani),palak paneer, andpaneer tikka masalaon the menu. Paneer butter masala is an all-time crowd favorite, and palak paneer is especially loved or consumed during the winter when leafy greens are available in plenty.

Apart from these gravies, you can use paneer to make dry snacks, appetizers, sweets, and desserts or even stuffed flatbreads such as parathas and kulchas for breakfast. The options are endless.

The best part is you can use the same masala or curry base to prepare chicken dishes. Simply substitute paneer with grilled or roasted chicken.

Some basic paneer dishes

If you are a beginner when it comes to cooking paneer dishes, then try some simple dishes at first. For example, add paneer to your rice to preparepaneer pulao, or mix it with green peas to make a quickMatar paneercurry.

If you lovetikka or kebabprepared with chicken, then next time, substitute chicken with paneer to make paneer tikka and surprise your guests.

You can mix grate paneer, some basic spices, sauteed onions, and salt and use it as a filling to prepare steaming hot paneer momos.

Or dip paneer slices in chickpea-flour batter and deep fry them in oil to make paneer pakora (fritters).

You can also pan-roast paneer slices with a dash of salt and toss them in your green salads instead of tofu.

Mix grated paneer with sauteed onion, tomatoes, and green chilies to makepaneer bhurjiinstead of egg bhurji.

Vegetarian Indian meal combo

You can serve any paneer gravy or curry with Indian flatbreads likenaan,roti,chapati,ghee rice, or jeera riceto make a complete Indian meal. You can check different Indian bread recipes that can be served with paneer dishes.

Paneer curry and paneer gravy recipes

In this section, I have covered some of the simple and easy paneer curries and paneer gravies where onion-tomato masala is used as the base. Just like at restaurants and dhabas, these paneer dishes can be served with Indian flatbreads such as roti, naan, chapati, phulka, etc. You can even serve it with steamed rice,jeera rice, ghee rice, etc.

Some of the popular and favorite paneer gravy and curry are

• Paneer butter masala, also called paneer makhani or butter paneer
• Matar paneer or green peas and paneer gravy
• Jain-style palak paneer without onion and garlic, you can also try this during vrat, fasting, and upvas days.
• Veg kadai or Kadai paneer - You can use only paneer or combine it with all veggies, just like we do.
• Very basic paneer curry popular as vrat wale paneer curry using basic ingredients from your kitchen.
• Healthy and nutritious hariyali paneer using green leafy vegetables of your choice
• Traditional palak paneer recipe from scratch

Paneer appetizers, Paneer dry recipes

This is one of my favorite sections, as it contains some easy paneer dry recipes and appetizers that you can prepare in less than 20 minutes.

• Paneer in Butter Garlic Cream Sauce
• Paneer Pepper Dry
• Peri Peri Paneer with addictive Cheese Sauce
• Paneer Chilli or Manchurian - an easy method.

Paneer main dishes

You can add paneer as the main ingredient while making rice dishes like biryani or pulao. You can also grate it and add it as stuffing for your naan, kulcha, or paratha. Use it even as toppings for dosa and pizza. Some of my favorites are

• Paneer Paratha
• Thai-style Vegetable Fried Rice
• Breadless Sandwich or Eggless Omelette - Protein-packed weight loss recipe

Paneer sweets and desserts

Paneer is also used to make some of the famous Indian sweets and desserts like jalebi, rasgulla, halwa, burfi, sondesh, kheer, kalakand, etc.
Some of the best desserts with paneer include

• Instant Paneer Jalebi
• Rasgulla and Rasmalai from scratch
• Indian Cheesecake or Milk Cake called Kalakand

Vegan simple paneer recipes

For all those who are on a vegan diet and still want to try these paneer recipes, substitute paneer with tofu (extra firm variety) and follow the recipe instructions. You can also check out the below recipes prepared using vegan paneer (tofu).

• Noodle Soup
• Fried Tofu or Paneer with Thai Special Sauce
• Honey Sriracha Tofu
• Spicy Basil Tofu
• Tofu Bhurji

Recipes in which you can use paneer as a substitute

All recipes which use chicken or potatoes as main ingredients can be substituted with paneer. Below are some dishes where you can easily substitute chicken or potatoes with paneer. Like chicken kathi rolls, paneer kati rolls are a very popular street food where you use paneer as the main ingredient. You can add paneer to methi pulao and make methi paneer pulao, add marinated paneer instead of chicken to make the delicious paneer biryani, or grate and add it in samosa filling to make paneer samosa, and so on.

• Chicken Kathi Rolls
• Methi Rice (Pulao)
• Chicken Biryani
• Crispy Honey Chilli Potatoes
• Mini Veg Puffs
• Samosa
• Chicken Tikka
• Cajun Potatoes

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