Palak Paneer

 Palak Paneer is a popular Indian dish of Indian cottage cheese cubes in a mild, spiced smooth spinach sauce. This delicious creamy dish is made with fresh spinach leaves, paneer (firm cottage cheese), onions, tomatoes, herbs and spices.

Table of Contents

1. About this recipe
2. Palak Paneer vs Saag Paneer
3. How to make Palak Paneer (Stepwise Photos)
4. Tips & Variations
5. Recipe Card

Easy Palak Paneer 

This delicious palak paneer recipe is the way my mom has always made it for our family. She has been making this recipe for years, has passed it onto me and now I am so happy to share it here.

It is one of the most popular and well-liked paneer recipes on the blog as well as our favorite at home.

In my palak paneer recipe, I show the method of blanching spinach. This is done so that the dish has a nice green color and it is a healthy practice as well.

I always recommend blanching spinach before making any dish where the spinach leaves are used in large quantities and where a puree is made from them. Blanching has many benefits and you can read more about them in this post of Palak Recipes.

This delicious palak paneer goes well with roti, naan, paratha or tandoori roti. Or serve it with jeera or biryani rice, saffron or ghee rice.

Palak Paneer vs Saag Paneer

Saag paneer and palak paneer are often considered the same dish, but they are not. Palak paneer is the authentic Indian dish made with only spinach puree, where saag paneer is made with a mixture of various greens.

Saag paneer seems to have been popularized outside of India, however it is still very uncommon in India.

In the Punjabi or Hindi language the word ‘saag’ means greens. Various leafy greens fall under this category of ‘saag’, such as amaranth leaves, spinach, dill leaves, radish leaves, mustard leaves, fenugreek leaves and purslane.

My mother-in-law never makes saag paneer, however there are four variations of palak or spinach saag that she makes.

One is made with mung lentils (palak mung dal), another with split chickpeas (chana dal palak), the third with potatoes (aloo palak) and the fourth with paneer – popularly known as palak paneer.

Technically saag paneer is a dish where the saag is made first by combining 2 to 3 types of greens. Then paneer is added to the pureed greens.

Even though they are different dishes, both palak paneer and saag paneer are healthy as well as delicious.

Step-by-Step Guide

How to make Palak Paneer

Blanching the Spinach

1. Using a colander or strainer, rinse the palak or spinach leaves (250 grams or 0.55 pounds), very well in running water.

2. Boil 3 cups water in a pan, microwave or electric heater. Add ¼ tsp salt to the hot water and stir. Then add the spinach leaves to the hot water. Let the spinach leaves sit in the water for about 1 minute. If doing this on a stove-top, be sure to remove the pan from the hot burner. 

3. After 1 minute, strain the spinach leaves.

4. Immediately add the palak or spinach leaves in a pan or bowl containing ice cold water. This method helps in preserving the green color of the spinach. Just add 8 to 10 ice cubes to 3 cups water to get cold water. Allow the spinach leaves to be in the cold water for a minute.

5. Then drain the ice cold water. Add the spinach in a blender or grinder jar with 1 inch chopped ginger, (1 or 2 small to medium) garlic cloves and 1 or 2 chili peppers (green chillies). You can also use a hand-held immersion blender to make the puree.

6. Make a smooth spinach puree. No need to add water while making the puree. Set the spinach puree aside.

7. Heat 2 tablespoons oil (or ghee or butter) in a pan or kadai (wok). Here I have used butter. If using butter, melt it on a low flame making sure that it does not brown.