Kadai Paneer Recipe, How to make Restaurant Style Kadai Paneer Recipe

July 13, 2015

Kadai Paneer Recipe or Kadai paneer restaurant style dry recipe. It is delicious and very easy to make paneer dish. This recipe is classic North-Indian dish served in restaurants but this is purely Homemade style. To make kadai paneer, paneer is seasoned, lightly spiced and cooked with onion, tomatoes and capsicums. Kadai means ‘Wok’ (not chinese wok but Indian wok. Some how similar. Indian wok has more depth than chinese one). Paneer means ‘Indian cottage cheese’.

Kadai is used to prepare many other Indian stir fried vegetable dishes and even for deep frying indian snacks like poori, aloo-paneer bread pakoras (fritters) or even some sweets like sweet vermicelli, rava kesari halwa is prepared in the kadai.

The recipe is roughly being adapted by Sanjeev Kapoor cookbook. The restaurant in Bangalore serve two kinds of kadai paneer. Kadai Paneer Gravy or kadai Paneer dry. The one I am sharing here today. It goes fantastic with tawa pulao or methi paratha or chapati or lachha paratha.

Follow the recipe with step by step process with pictures and you have a truly restaurant style kadai paneer to relish.

Ingredients :

Paneer/cottage cheese, cubed - 250 gms
Medium Onion - 2 no (cubed)
Chopped Medium tomatoes - 3 no
Capsicum cubed - 1 no
Ginger paste - 1 tsp
Green chillies - 1 no (slit and cut in two halves)
Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Dhaniya/coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - As needed
Kasoori methi - 1 tsp
Coriander leaves,chopped - 2 tbsp
Oil - 3 tbsp
Coriander seeds - 1 tsp

Preparation Method :

1. Wash & cut the vegetables. Keep paneer immersed in hot water until before you cook.

2. Heat oil in a pan/kadai and season with the coriander seeds. (You can crush it roughly too before seasoning.) But I added as such. Follow by adding ginger paste and give a quick fry. Add cubed onion, green chillies slit and fry till onion turns transparent.

3. Add the chopped tomatoes and add salt, add all the spices - chilli powder, dhaniya powder, garam masala powder and turmeric powder. Fry till tomatoes turn gooey.

4. Continue frying till oil oozes out and then add the cubed capsicum and fry for 1 or 2 minutes. The crunchiness and color should not change.

5. Add the paneer cubes (paneer cubes should be kept immersed in hot water till use) and crush the kasoori methi within you palms to powder it and add it to it. Add 1/4 cup of water and mix well.

6. Cook till the masala coats paneer well and the gravy is thick almost dry. Not too dry too. Add the chopped coriander leaves lastly and transfer to the serving dish.