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5 from 2 votes

Butter Paneer

Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time30 minutes
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Indian
Keyword: butter paneer, paneer curry, paneer makhani
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  • 300 gram paneer cut into cubes
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 2-3 tablespoon butter
  • 4 green elachie
  • 4 cloves
  • 1 large red onion thinly sliced
  • 2 tsp ginger garlic paste
  • 2 green chillies
  • 3 large roma tomatoes remove skin and chop into 4 pieces
  • 10 cashew nuts soaked in warm water
  • 1/2 cup vegetable stock
  • 2 tspn kashmiri chilli powder
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 1 tsp coriander powder
  • 1&1/2 tsp cumin powder
  • 1 tsp garam masala
  • 1/4 cup fresh cream or more
  • 1&1/2 tsp dried methi leaves see note 4
  • 1-2 tsp sugar if required
  • salt

Instructions

  • Heat the oil in a pot. If using butter add a few drops of oil to prevent burning. Add the elachie and cloves to the pot and fry for about a minute, until fragrant.
  • Add the onion and fry until slightly brown. Add the ginger/garlic paste and fry for a minute. Add the green chillies, cashews and tomatoes together with 1 tablespoon butter. Cook for 5 minutes
  • Add the chilli powder,cardamom powder, cumin powder and turmeric. Cook for 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of vegetable stock and cook for about 15 minutes or until tomatoes are cooked. The butter will surface to the top.
  • Allow the sauce to cool down a bit. Remove the cardamom pods and cloves from the sauce. Pop the sauce into a blender and blend until smooth.Add about a 1/4 cup of warm water, if the sauce is too thick. Use a sieve and strain the sauce back into the pot, it should be smooth. Season with salt. Add sugar only if necessary or if you prefer a sweeter sauce.
  • Add the fresh cream, you can add more or less depending on your taste.Fry the paneer in one tablespoon butter and add it with the butter from the pan into the sauce. Add dried methi leaves and garam masala and heat through. You can add the other tablespoon of butter to the sauce if you prefer a richer more buttery sauce.
  • Garnish with fresh coriander and serve

Notes

  1. The cashew nuts can be replaced with almonds. You can also totally omit the nuts, it won't impact the flavour that much
  2. You can use some tomato passata instead of the tomatoes, I would suggest about 2 cups
  3. You can add more cream if you wish
  4. The dried methi leaves is also know as kasuri methi which can be found in most Indian spice shops. although you can leave it out, it is highly recommended as it makes all the difference to the flavour
  5. If you don't have vegetable stock replace with warm water