As most of you know, I LOVE to cook from scratch and one of my favourite meals to make is a curry. I’m also trying to incorporate more vegetarian dishes into my weekly meal plan for variety and health reasons, so this Palak Paneer seemed a good choice to make and share. I have now made this recipe a few times, initially inspired by a Gousto delivery, but I have been tweaking the recipe ever so slightly to make it my own and it’s blooming delicious!

Recipe for 2 people. Cooking time approx. 20 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 red onion
• 1 pepper (any colour, I used green)
• 150g baby leaf spinach
• 1 tomato
• 1 red chilli
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• 1 heaped tbsp garam masala
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 226g (generally a block) Paneer cheese
• Rice (I used 1 x boil in the bag pack for 2 and this was more than enough)
• 1 tbsp dried onions

Method:

1. Start to cook your rice according to instructions (unless you have a microwave pouch then do this at stage 7)
2. Peel & finely dice the red onion, chop the tomato roughly, dice the pepper finely and chop the red chilli finely. Also put the kettle on to boil.
3. Chop the Paneer into bite-sized pieces (and try not to eat loads of it whilst you do, I can’t help myself!) Heat a large pan with a drizzle of oil (I use olive or coconut oil), over a medium heat. Once hot add the Paneer to brown on all sides (roughly 2 – 3 minutes). Once browned, move to a plate and season with salt.
4. Return the pan to a medium heat and add more oil if needed. Add the diced onion and pepper and cook until they soften. Add the chopped tomatoes, garam masala and most of the chopped chilli (to taste, I leave just enough to garnish), cook for approx. 1 minute until fragrant.
5. Add the baby spinach to a colander and pour over the boiled water so that it starts to wilt. Rinse the wilted spinach until cool and then squeeze the water out of the spinach and chop finely. Re-boil a kettle.
6. Add the tomato paste and chopped spinach to the pan and cook for a 1-2 minutes. Dissolve the stock cube in 200ml of boiled water.
7. Add the stock gradually to the pan and stir to thicken until all the stock is absorbed and the sauce resembles a thick curry (should take 3 – 5 minutes). If you have a microwave rice pouch, stick this in the microwave now. Return the Paneer to the pan and cook to warm it through.
8. Serve your curry and rice and garnish with the leftover chopped chilli and the dried onions.
9. Enjoy!

Please do give this a try and share your comments and photos with me by tagging @jensfoodblog #jensfoodblog across my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I do love to pass on some cooking inspiration 🙂

Happy munching!

Jen