Palak Paneer (High-Protein)

About this recipe

Palak paneer is the North Indian classic where silken spinach and tender paneer cubes create something greater than the sum of the parts—a dish that tastes bright and alive when made with fresh spinach, luxurious in a way that's never heavy. This is the kind of thing a grandmother would make for family dinner, something that feels special without being difficult. The spinach is blanched briefly then pureed fine, so the sauce flows around the paneer rather than sitting in chunks. Fresh spinach is blanched just until wilted—ninety seconds in boiling water—then shocked in ice water to stop the cooking and preserve the color. Ground with green chillies to a silken puree, it becomes the base for the sauce. Pureed tomato adds body and keeps the sauce from tasting too spinachy. Ginger-garlic paste provides warmth; cumin seeds crackled in oil provide the aromatics. Optional cream or yogurt adds richness, though the cashew cream from dal makhani works beautifully if you want to keep it lighter. The critical technique is brief blanching and not boiling the finished sauce hard. If you boil spinach for more than a minute, it starts to fade. If you boil the finished palak paneer, the color dulls and the flavor turns bitter. Cook gently, bubble rather than boil, and the dish stays vibrant and fresh. Serve palak paneer hot with warm rotis or over steamed basmati. It's high-protein at 21g per serving from the paneer alone. Perfect for meal prep—keeps for four days in the fridge and freezes beautifully for up to a month. The flavor deepens overnight as the spinach continues to infuse. Even better the next day.