Paneer Butter Masala is an addictive steamy creamy palatable appetizing recipe where cubes of unsalted cottage cheese is cooked in delicious sauce made with tomatoes, cream and rich spices. It is a popular North Indian vegetarian curry where a combination of tomato-based sauce, butter and nut paste is used to get a curry dish that appears orange-red as it is made up of buttery base loaded with unique vibrant authentic aromatic spices.
A proper combination of whole and powdered spices are used to get the most enjoyable, succulent, rich and delectable recipe that is very popular at Indo-Pakistani restaurants and widely used as a party dish.
Basic information
Paneer butter masala is known for the perfect combination of spiciness and creaminess. It is also known as shahi paneer or paneer makhani.
The creamy texture and taste resemble other creamy variant like malai kofta that can be found in the menu of Indian restaurants.
It is a simple vegetarian curry like the India’s cult classic butter chicken where instead of “chicken” (or meat) cottage cheese is used that is a fresh Indian cheese (like feta or halloumi), rich in protein and it serves as a substitute for meat and chicken. It absorbs the flavours of curry and proves to be a great vegetarian replacement for meat.
It is one of the most popular paneer curry served by Indian restaurants.
The restaurant-style recipe is made with delicious base that contains ginger-garlic, onion, paprika, tomato puree and cashew nuts. One can find the same ingredients in butter chicken with slight modifications.
The ingredients are stir-fried and a puree is made that is cooked with cottage-cheese and the final dish is garnished with cilantro leaves.
Homemade curry sauce can be made with tomatoes, garlic, ginger, nut paste and other ingredients boiled and made into a paste. The paste is cooked in oil (or butter) and curry masala is added to it. After preparing the base of curry, lightly fried paneer and cream is added to it. At home, one can use low- cream milk instead of fresh cream to reduce the fat content in the dish. Use of certain spices like Kashmiri chillies can enhance the color of the dish without increasing the strong spicy tang.
It can be served with fluffy-tender naan, roti or bread. It is mostly a semi-gravy version, which can also be served with pilau rice, or jeera rice, or plain boiled rice, salad and pickles.