Skip to main content

Saag paneer

This saag is faster than delivery.  I swear.  Eat it with rice or naan.  Though the recipe calls this "saag paneer," the bulk of the recipe is for the sauce: we sometimes make the sauce ahead, freeze it without paneer or other protein, and save it for an "instant dinner" in the future.

Ingredients:
  • 1 medium tomato
  • 2 T ghee butter (or a mild-flavored oil)
  • 1/2 medium onion
  • 1 pound greens
  • 5 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 2 tsp minced ginger
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp tumeric
  • 2 tsp garam masala
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 block paneer, chopped into cubes (or a can of chickpeas, or some tofu, or cooked meat)
The Process:

Put ghee or oil into the base of the Instant Pot and set to saute.  Once ghee is melted (or oil is hot), add garlic, ginger, onion, and tomato and saute for 1-2 minutes.

Put greens, spices, and 1/2 cup water into the pot, and combine with garlic and tomato mix.

Put the lid on the Instant Pot and be sure it's set to "sealing."  Pressure cook for four minutes, then quick release the pressure.

Remove lid and, using an immersion blender, blend until sauce is the texture you'd like.  (We tend to go for fewer chunks of stuff, but you do you.)

Add paneer (or chickpeas, cooked tofu/meat, whatever) and serve.

Pro Tips:

You will notice the recipe says "greens" above.  It literally doesn't matter what kind of greens.  Spinach is most common, but whatever's in your fridge will work.  Beet greens? You've got it.  Kale?  Toss it in!  The proportions will change the color slightly - the more spinach, the lovelier the bright green color is.  But saag is a great use for those weird greens that came in your CSA, for example, and a great way to start using things like beet or turnip greens if you don't usually do so.

Saag is a pretty mild sauce, so it's one recipe where I tend to go lightly on the cayenne or other pepper.  That said, we like spicy food around here, so if you do, too, you may want to amp the cayenne up a bit.  You can also substitute whatever heat source you like: crushed red pepper, for example, works fine.

When I'm using store-bought paneer rather than my homemade, I like to set the Instant Pot to the slow cook feature and let it cook for half an hour or so.  It lets the paneer absorb some of the sauce's flavor.

Obviously, every recipe is better with fresh garlic, fresh ginger, etc.  But sometimes I am tired and lazy.  It is legitimate to use powdered versions or those helpful squeeze tubes of paste if, like me, you are trying to use them up.

Comments

Popular Posts

An Introduction

Hello, all!  This blog is an experiment - partly to see if I will stick with blogging, and partly to track our family's progress toward more ethical and from-scratch cooking.  My partner-in-crime Karen and I have been doing a lot to try to reduce our carbon footprint and to take better care of ourselves, and much of that revolves around food.  We're lucky to be in a fairly large metro area, where CSAs and farmers' markets and co-ops exist in abundance.  We are hoping the blog will encourage us (well, me) to stay serious about our new eating practices.  Our schedule tends to be more open in the summer, so now is the moment to give this a try! How do I cook?  I like to have a weekly plan.  I am a meal prepper, with snacks and lunch for the week made in advance.  Because we're committed to ethical meat (and moving toward ethical dairy as much as possible), we tend to be "semi-vegetarian."  We are low-to-no soy household due to allergies.  I strive for heart-hea

Lentil Sloppy Joes

This recipe is modified from this one at Simply Quinoa.  We like the texture, but find the final product overly sweet, so I got creative and came up with some modifications. A note: this recipe makes a TON.  It makes six cup-plus servings.  However, it freezes really well. Ingredients: 1 cup finely chopped carrots 1 cup shredded jackfruit 1/2 cup finely diced onion 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 1/2 cups brown or green lentils 1/2 cup quinoa (uncooked) 8 oz tomato sauce 1/2 cup ketchup 1 T maple syrup (or honey, or other sweetener) 2 T hot sauce of your choice 2 T mustard 1 T chili powder 1 tsp paprika 3-4 cups veggie broth salt and pepper to taste The Process: Put all the ingredients into a slow cooker.  Stir to combine. Cook on high for 2-3 hours or low for 4-6 hours. Eat. Yes, it's that simple. Pro Tips: I like to shred the carrots, but if you want more texture/crunch, just chop them very small. If you like mushrooms, you might use those as the origi

A Farmers’ Market on the Road!

We’ve been out and about this past week, visiting family.  This presents some challenges: my parents eat very differently than we do at home.  The single biggest difference is the sheer quantity of meat.  Some weeks ago, my mom commented that they (two people) go through two or three pounds of ground beef a week.  Karen and I had no idea how that was even possible, but we’ve seen it first-hand the past few days: beef shepherd’s pie, meatballs, burgers.  My charming mom asked if we wanted chicken for the grill since we don't eat much meat - to quite a lot of laughter from me and Karen, who don't consider chicken a vegetable.  Luckily no one’s offended at our gentle modifications to amplify the veggies at every opportunity.  (Neither are my folks signing on to eat the delicious hummus, cheese, and veggie sandwiches I made for yesterday’s picnic.  Sigh.) They are supportive folks, even if they are deeply suspicious of hummus, so today we were off to a nearby farmers’ market in t