Home made Paneer

Category: Kitchen Basics
Cooking Time: 20 mins

Home made Paneer

Paneer is one of the most favourite among the kids. We can use paneer in gravies, stir fries, parathas, pizza, Dosa, Stuffed Buns, Pastries, Options are endless. Also making paneer at home is not a hectic process and once we start making it we would never go back to the store brought ones.

Also if we prefer, we can add little salt and spices as per our liking to make spiced paneer cubes. We can make paneer either with curd or lemon juice. I prefer making with curd since it will give more volume and also will be so soft. While making with lemon juice, we might need to wash the paneer soon after draining it from whey to remove the lemon flavour.

Super soft!!!!

One important thing is we need to drain all water from the paneer or else it will become soft and crumbly; if we want to use for any snack items or for parathas we can use that one. For more firm paneer, we need to make sure there are no water left behind in the paneer.

Soft & Fresh Home made Paneer

Ingredients:

• Full fat Milk - 4 cups
• Curd - 1/2 cup or juice from 1 big lemon

Method:

1. Heat the milk in a wide pan and bring to boil
   
2. Once it starts to boil, reduce the flame to medium and add 1/4 cup of curd (or half of  the lemon juice) and mix well
   
3. Milk will start to curdle; then add the remaining curd (or lemon juice) and reduce the flame to low 
   
4. Gently stir until the milk solids (paneer) gets separated leaving the clear whey water 
5. Switch off once the whey water becomes clear and milk solids get separated
   
6. Place a muslin cloth or any thin white cloth over a wide bowl and pour the curdled milk over it to filter the whey water from the milk solids. We can also strain using fine holed strainer (while pouring hot, we need to use stainless steel strainer. In the pic below, I had placed the cooled paneer) and then place it in white cloth. Whey water can be used for chapathi dough. (If using lemon juice, we might need to wash the paneer after draining)
   
7. Squeeze the excess water and hang it for 1-2 hrs undisturbed
8. Then flatten it and place a heavy weight like a heavy tawa / cooker over the paneer and left undisturbed for another 2 hours
9. After 2 hrs, we can refrigerate it for minimum one hour so that we can get clean neat pieces while cutting into cubes
   
10. Then we can cut into cubes and use in our recipes
    
11. If we are not using it right way or within 1-2 days, we can also freeze them in freezer and use when needed 

    

    Home made Paneer Cubes

12. If there is any water left in paneer, it will become crumbly and in that case we can use it for recipes which needs soft / grated paneer