Paneer Gravy for Everyday Cooking

Restaurant paneer gravies are built on cream, cashew paste and a long ingredient list. They are very good and they are not a Tuesday. This is the structure of the everyday version — the one that uses what is already in the kitchen and takes about half an hour.

What a weeknight gravy leaves out

Three things, mostly: the cashew or melon-seed paste that gives restaurant gravies their weight, the cream finish, and the separate pre-frying of the paneer. Each adds something. None is essential.

What you keep is the part that does the most work: a properly cooked onion-tomato base.

The base

Exactly the sequence any homestyle curry uses — and it is worth not hurrying:

1. Heat oil or ghee. Add whole spices if you are using them and let them crackle.
2. Onions, cooked until genuinely golden at the edges. This stage carries the sweetness; three minutes will not do it.
3. Ginger garlic paste, about a minute, until the oil separates.
4. Tomatoes and ground spices. Cook down until thick and the oil separates a second time.

When oil pools at the edges after the tomatoes, the base is finished. Add water now to reach the consistency you want.

The paneer, and how to keep it soft

Paneer firms up and turns rubbery with heat and time. Two things help:

• Add it at the end. Two or three minutes in the simmering gravy is enough to warm it through and let it take on flavour. Longer makes it chewy.
• Soak it first if it is fridge-cold or shop-bought. Fifteen to twenty minutes in warm — not boiling — water softens it noticeably. Drain before it goes in.

If you do want to fry the paneer first, keep it brief and move it straight into warm water afterwards, or the crust will set hard.

Adjusting it

• Too sharp? The onions probably needed longer, or the tomatoes were acidic. A pinch of sugar balances it; so does a longer simmer.
• Too thin? Simmer uncovered rather than adding thickener.
• Want it richer without cream? A spoonful of thick yoghurt, whisked smooth and stirred in off the heat so it does not split.

A note on this recipe

These are the principles, not a tested recipe with exact quantities — we publish those only after cooking them through, and our paneer gravy is in that queue. When it is ready it will appear on the recipes page with measured ingredients and timings.