Paneer is a type of fresh cheese that can be made easily at home. Paneer has a milky flavor on its own, so it taste best when paired with strong spicy flavor like curries or tikka. This is a cheese that won’t melt like mozzarella or cheddar will. We can add them on any curry, or crumble them into flat breads like roti. Or even add them to kebabs and the cheese will keep its shape and chewy texture.
I like making paneer at home. But sometimes i do buy them outside if I am very indolent. But I am sure home-made paneer is more hygienic and it saves a lot of money as well. Paneer is the star ingredient in some of my favourite north Indian dishes. Sometimes when i pan fry them in butter, i grab them and eat 🙂 I Love paneer 🙂 You need very few ingredients to make paneer at home. if you have milk, lemon juice, pan, strainer and some cheesecloth/normal cloth, you can have fresh paneer cheese at home.
I have made this using 2% milk, but i would say avoid skim or non-fat milk as there isn’t enough milk fat left to actually separate into curds.Place them in a zip lock and store in the freezer section for a week or so. But if you don’t use it right away, please make sure you have plans for it within a few days at least.
To see what you can make with paneer, here are some of my paneer recipes : Paneer Makhanwala, Malai Methi Paneer , Paneer peas masala,rasgulla and rasmalai.
- Ingredients:
- Milk – 6 cups
- Lemon Juice – 2 tsp or yogurt - 1 tbsp or vinegar- 2 tsp
- Ice cubes – 6
- Mix lemon juice in half a cup of warm water and keep aside.
- Add 5 cups milk to a large pan over medium high heat. Constantly stir the milk at regular intervals to make sure the milk does not stick to the bottom.
- When it is boiling nicely, add the lemon juice/water mixture to the boiling milk. The milk will curdle in about a minute and most of the milk protein coagulates into lumps leaving very thin, slight cloudy water behind. When the water is clear, stop curdling by adding ice.
- Drain out the liquid using a muslin cloth or any clean thin cloth. Guess what you have in the cloth? Its cottage cheese! Squeeze out the excess water and hang the cloth with paneer for about 30-40minutes.
- Now rub the cloth that contains the paneer with another cloth. This removes the remaining water and helps us form the dough. Now remove the paneer from the cloth, knead it well.
- Cut them into desired shapes and store in freezer. Use it when you need it.
