This Butter Paneer (Cottage Cheese) Recipe will make you question your Indian Takeaway choices! This is super easy to make and tastes amazing with Naan.
The sauce is a rich and perfect blend of cashews, onion, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and fragrant spices. I bet you if you make this once, you will be making this again, there is no going back!
Start by soaking the cashews that way, by the time you are done chopping ingredients they should be almost ready to be blended. You can use fresh or canned tomatoes, whatever is available in your pantry, since they are going to be blended any way.
You can make this recipe vegan by replacing Panner with Tofu, Butter with Vegan Butter and Cream with Coconut Cream and basically make it 'Vegan Butter Tofu'!
Recipe
- Prep Time : 15 minutes
- Cook Time : 45 minutes
- Serves : 5-6
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Cashews
- 360g Paneer (Cottage Cheese)
- 1tbsp Oil
- 400g (2 Medium) Chopped Tomatoes
- 1 Large Red Onion
- 1 1/2 tsp Ginger
- 2 Bay Leaves
- 4 Cloves
- 3 Green Cardamom
- 1 Cinnamon
- 50g Butter
- 1 1/2 tsp Sugar
- 2 tsp (to taste) Salt
- 2 tsp Garam Masala
- 2 tsp Kasoori Methi (Fenugreek)
- 2 tbsp Cream
Steps
- Add hot water to the cashews and put aside for 30 minutes.
- Dice the paneer, add hot water and a pinch of salt and set aside for 30min.
- Add oil to a pan, turn the heat on, add onion. Cook until lightly caramelised.
- Add tomatoes to the onion and cook for another 10-15 mins (until tomatoes are cooked).
- Turn the heat off, let the cooked onion and tomato masala cool a bit, then transfer the soaked cashews and masala to a blender, blend until it becomes a smooth paste.
- Put the blend on the side and using the same pan, turn the heat on and add butter to it.
- Add the whole spices and cook for 1-2 mins/until fragrant.
- Add crushed ginger and garlic and saute for 1-2 mins.
- Add the cashew masala blend you kept aside to the pan, adjust thickness to your liking by adding hot water.
- Add garam masala, salt, sugar, Kashmiri lal mirchi (red chilli powder), and kasoori methi (Fenugreek) to the pan and cook for a few mins.
- Add cream and cook for 3-5 mins on low to medium flame. Cover the pot to avoid splashes.
- Once cream is cooked out, add the diced paneer and cook in the sauce for 5 minutes.
- Serve it with naan or rice. Enjoy!!!
