Paneer tikka masala recipe | Paneer tikka masala restaurant style

Paneer tikka masala is a dish full of flavor. Best paired with a garlic naan or a tandoori roti. You can serve the paneer tikka as a starter and later serve some of the paneer cubes as the curry. Both are wonderful dishes with a fan-following of their own. There is something so magical about this dish that everyone says yes immediately after looking at it,in the restaurant menu. Trust me, you are impressing most of the guests by making tikkas in the starter.

These days you can get the paneer block even in Costco. Another good thing is it does not contain animal rennet. It is made by adding citrus juice to warm milk. Hence it is light. This makes it different from cheese like mozzarella,Parmesan,  Gorgonzola, Pecorino Romano ,Gruyere ,Camberbert etc where animal enzymes are added.I always check the cheese ingredients and try to avoid these types where animal rennet is added abroad.It can be used to make various dishes too. Make an appetizer like pakoras for the start or make a paratha for breakfast.You can make a restaurant style curry like bhurji or matar paneer for mains.Use it to make baked cheese cake or chenna poda, rasmalai, rasgulla.

Jump to:

• Benefits of Cottage cheese
• How to make cottage cheese at home?
• Ingredients
• Equipment
• How to make paneer tikka masala ?
• Tikka paneer masala recipe
• Substitutions
• Variations
• Storage
• FAQs
• Try more simple cottage cheese recipes:

How to make cottage cheese at home?

Best part is you can make chenna or fresh cottage cheese easily at home. Follow the below steps to see how it is made at home

1. Boil milk.
2. Add some apple cider vinegar or teaspoon lemon juice to it. Let it coagulate. You can increase the juice/cider according to the quantity of milk to get fresh chenna.
3. Strain it with a Sieve or muslin cloth. Easy peasy!
4. Keep the chenna in the muslin or soft cotton cloth and keep under some heavy kitchen vessel to let it solidify. I use a spring form cake tin to keep the cottage cheese (in the cotton cloth) in the cake tin without the base first, then add the base,add a box on top of the base, then add some weight.I will take the picture of this arrangement next time and share it here.

Refer to our details post on making paneer at home here

Ingredients

To cook paneer tikka masala dhaba style, you will need the dry Paneer tikka prepared. Read our recipe to make this .Apart from this you will need to make the paneer tikka masala paste or the paneer tikka masala gravy.

For curry

• dahi/ hung curd/ Greek yogurt
• ghee or oil
• onions
• tomatoes

Tikka masala spices

• garam masala
• ginger-chilli paste
• red chilly powder
• coriander powder
• cumin powder
• turmeric powder
• Salt as per taste

For garnish:  chopped coriander leaves and kasuri methi / dried fenugreek leaves (optional)

How to make paneer tikka masala ?

• Heat oil over medium flame in a pan. Add ginger, chilly and finely chopped onion with salt. Cook until brown.

• Add the tomato puree to the onion and cook for few minutes
• Once the tomato has dried out a bit,add the spices and mix well.

• Add yogurt and cook for few minutes until the sauce comes together
• Keep stirring and add 2 cups of water.

• 5. Let it come to a boil and add the cottage cheese cubes to it.  
• Garnish it with kasoori methi and chopped coriander leaves optionally. 

• Serve with roti bread or naan bread

Read the tandoori paneer masala recipe below

Substitutions

For vegan tikka : Make a tofu tikka and use vegan yogurt along with oil in the curry.

Non-vegetarian: If you like your chicken tikka, you can make a chicken tikka masala in the same fashion. Cooking time will change according to the core ingredient.

Variations

• Add red chilli powder or more green chillies if you like a spicier recipe. You may also add ginger garlic paste or increase a teaspoon garam masala according to your taste.
• You may also increase bell peppers/capsicums in the recipe if serving to more people. Just add after onions.
• You may use paprika/ Kashmiri red chilly powder if you like a milder version.
• Another variation you can do with the recipe of paneer tikka masala is to use Tofu instead of paneer.
• You may add less water to the gravy if you want to make the paneer tikka masala dry recipe

Storage

You can make the curry and freeze a batch. Make fresh tikka and add to gravy whenever you wish to eat this recipe mid-week.

FAQs

Try more simple cottage cheese recipes:

• Paneer butter masala
• Achari Paneer
• Palak paneer
• Kadai paneer
• biryani

Also, click here for more recipe videos.