How to Make Paneer at Home With 2 Ingredients Easily

Paneer is is a fresh cheese common in South Asia, especially in Indian, Pakistani, Afghan, Nepali, Sri Lankan, and Bangladeshi cuisines. It is treated as the king of vegetarian fare, specially in North India. Some call it cottage cheese. It's made only with 2 ingredients and very simple process.

It’s a very healthy dish specially for vegetarians. It is made by curdling heated milk with a souring agent like lemon juice, vinegar, or any other food acids.

My daughter adores Paneer. She likes all the dishes I make using Paneer. Most of those dishes are listed below and hopefully I will be adding the recipes of these in coming write-ups. My daughter was my inspiration to start making paneer at home and I am happy for it.

1. Paneer fried rice
2. Paneer butter Masala curry
3. Paneer scrambled
4. Fried Paneer skews
5. Palak Paneer (with Spinach)
6. Paneer Biriyani
7. Paneer Pizza
8. Chile garlic paneer

Ingredients

1. Fresh full cream milk – 2 liters
2. Lime juice /Vinegar/Lemon – ¼ cup
3. Muslin or Cheese cloth
4. Wooden spoon
5. Sauce pan to boil the milk
6. Ice basket
7. Salt – 1 tsp

1. Pour the milk to a heavy bottom sauce pan and boil the milk
2. Once the milk starts to boil add the vinegar or lemon or lime juice. Immediately you will see that the milk starts to curdle and separate. If it doesn’t happen you need to add some lime/lemon drops gradually. Switch off the stove once it starts to curdle as otherwise you paneer will become hard.
3. Pour the mixture into a muslin or cheese cloth to get the curdled milk parts and seprate the water.
4. Let it sit there 1 minute in a ice bucket to stop cooking the milk, now make a knot in the coth, squuze the muslin cloth to remove the water thorouly from the curdled milk parts.
5. Now put the paneer wrapped in muslin cloth on a plate and put a heave weight on top of it to drain any water for about an hour.
6. Now remove the cloth and cut it into cubes or any shape you like.

Store bought Paneer are expensive than making it at home obviously. More than that store bought ones have artificial acids and preservatives to keep them for longer period.

Why I make it at home is also to the fact that homemade Paneer cubes are softer and tastier than store bought ones.

1. As I said before, homemade paneer are softer and can be easily breakable. Therefore when you add paneer cubes handle gently and put to your curries at the end just before switching off the stove.
2. If you want to keep the paneer longer like 30 days freeze it, otherwise you can keep it in the refrigerator for 7 days.
3. Adding too much acid factor also harden the paneer, so make sure to add the exact amount.
4. It could be good idea to cut the cubes after refrigerating as it helps to cut nice and easy.