35 Minutes

Chili paneer is very popular indo Chinese dish in India. Its seasoned and fried paneer tossed in a spicy garlicky chili sauce and a stir fry of peppers and onions. I order this EVERY time I’m out at a Indian restaurant, but recently I found out that many restaurants use MSG and food coloring to achieve that red color and preserve the color in the veggies. Many times I end up making “restaurant style” dishes at home anyways, but theirs something quite different about the chili paneer sauce, it just doesn’t taste the same as restaurants. I found out the the key is to make a chili garlic ginger paste for this dish, it helps to binds all the flavors together and bring out the taste from the chilies and give it that AUTHENTIC chili flavor.

If you prefer a gravy version, just double up the recipe for the sauce. I personally like the dry version better because of the crispy paneer. To each their own. :)This pairs very well with veg fried rice, hakka noodles, and it can also be served as appetizer.

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CHILI PANEER

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★★★★★

5 from 1 reviews

• Author: Sweta Patel

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Ingredients

Scale

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Paneer

• 1 14oz package of paneer cut into 1inch cubes
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp ginger minced
• 1 tbsp garlic minced
• ¼ tsp salt & pepper to taste
• ¼ cup cornstarch
• ¼ cup all purpose flour
• ½ cup water
• oil for shallow frying

Chili sauce

• 1 bell pepper red, green, orange or yellow, cut into big pieces
• 1 onion cut into big pieces
• ¼ cup scallions finely chopped for garnish
• 2 tbsp chings red chili sauce
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp honey
• ½ tsp lemon juice
• 2 green chilies finely chopped
• 1 inch cube ginger roughly chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
• 6 Kashmiri red chilies fresh or dried, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• 2 tbsp water

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Instructions

Paneer

1. In a bowl mix flour, corn starch, ginger garlic, 1 tbsp oil and water. Mix everything together you have a smooth consistency batter.
2. Heat a deep pot with some oil for frying. Cut the paneer into 1 inch cubes or smaller, depending on your preference. Coat each paneer cube into the batter and fry until golden brown. DO NOT over crowd the pot, it will result into some soggy paneer. This will take 2-3 batches depending on the size of your pot. Once the paneer is shallow fried, let them cool and drip off on a paper towel.

Chili sauce

1. In a large pan heat up 1 tbsp oil and add the finely chopped green chilies. Cook this for 1 min and add kashmiri chilies, minced garlic and ginger.
2. Add the chopped onions and bell peppers, stir fry these on high heat for 4 mins.
3. next add the honey, salt pepper, soy sauce, lemon juice, ketchup and chili sauce. Give everything a good stir and add in the cornstarch and water slurry. Once you add that you will see the sauce get glossier and a lot deeper in its color.
4. Once the sauce is thickened, add your paneer and give everything a good mix. Garnish with the finely chopped scallions and serve immediately. Enjoy!

Notes

• To make this a vegan dish, replace the paneer with tofu. Make sure your tofu is complete dried and there is no moisture.
• Shallow fry the paneer first because the sauce comes together very quickly and you want to have all the ingredients ready on hand.
• You can use whole wheat flour instead of all purpose and cornstarch.
• You can replace cornstarch with arrowroot powder also.

• Category: Appetizer, entree, Lunch, Main Course
• Cuisine: indian

Keywords: chili paneer, chili tofu, indo chinese