How to make paneer at home | Soft Homemade Paneer | paneer from milk

How to make paneer at home – a easy step by step recipe to making paneer cubes at
home. Paneer, Indian cottage cheese is made by curdling milk and then draining off the whey using a muslin cloth.

The cheese that is got is pressed to cubes. Making paneer at home is very easy and there is no rocket science involved to get perfect soft paneer each time you make.

Most store bought paneer contains additives or at least citric acid that is not good for health. At home we can make paneer using curd or lemon juice and the quality is much better than the store bought one.

To make soft paneer, I suggest using fresh whole milk or full fat milk. Either yogurt, lemon juice or vinegar can be used to curdle the milk.Often it happens that the home made paneer cubes just breaks off when we add them to the gravy. To prevent that, just add paneer towards the end to the gravy and give a gentle stir and switch off the stove. Keep the pot covered for few mins, the heat in the hot gravy is enough to cook it thru. It doesn’t need to be cooked for longer.

There are few reasons for paneer breaking up in the gravy. But we can save our paneer cubes from breaking by adding corn flour to the paneer. I suggest using corn flour only if you had an experience with broken cubes in the gravy recipes.

You can easily get soft and porous paneer from mithai shops. However its best to make paneer at home as homemade paneer is more hygienic, fresh and suit the pocket as well !!!

finally, do visit my other similar sweet recipes collection with this post of paneer recipe. further do not forget to visit my other recipes collection like,

• snacks recipes collection
• chutney recipes collection
• sandwich recipes collection
• chaat recipes collection

recipe card for how to make paneer at home :

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how to make panner at home (step by step directions with photos) :

1.Take out the milk in the vessel and keep it for boiling. Bring milk to a boil on a medium flame. If using very cold milk, it is a good idea to boil on a low heat till the milk becomes warm. Then boil on a medium flame. Boiling very cold milk on high flame can lend a weird smell to paneer.

2.When the milk becomes to rise, start stirring occasionally to prevent from burning and forming cream (malai) on top.

3.After the milk has boiled, remove the milk from the gas, let the milk cool slightly.

4.Take out lemon juice in a bowl and mix equal amount of water in it.

5.After keeping the milk for a minute, pour a little lemon juice and stir with a spoon.

6.The milk should begin to curdle. If the milk has not yet begun to curdle than add one more teaspoon. The milk should completely curdle. Stir the milk when its curdling so that the curdled milk does not stick to the base of the pan.

7.Immediately in a muslin cloth, cotton kitchen napkin or thin handkerchief drain the curdled milk. Keep a bowl or pan beneath the cheese cloth. The collected whey can be added to chapatis or rice or veggies.

8.Rinse off the curdled milk with fresh water to remove sourness from lemon juice.

9.Gather the cloth and dip the paneer in whey for 3-4 times. By doing this paneer will not stick to the cloth.

10.Now take fresh water and again dip the paneer in water 3-4 times to remove sourness from lemon juice and also whey will be removed completely.

11.Squeeze off the water completely. Do not over squeeze as the moisture in paneer will be lost.

12. Take a plate or board and keep the cloth with the curdled milk on it. Place a heavy weight on top of it. I have used my stone mortar.

13. After 3 hours the paneer will be ready. Open the handkerchief or muslin. You will see a
beautiful block of cottage cheese all set. I used 1 litre of milk and hence i don’t have a huge big block of paneer.

14.The paneer block will be ready. Cut into cubes or desired shape.

recipe notes/tips :

• first and foremost use good quality milk. again full cream milk yields excellent results just like it does for making homemade curd.
• If you have used yogurt, no need to rinse the paneer. If lemon is used then we
  need to rinse to remove the smell of lemon.
• If paneer crumbles when you cut, then you have not drained/removed the whey properly.
• Three ingredients that coagulate the milk. you can use any one of them: lemon juice, curd or vinegar.
• Each of these will contribute their taste a little to the paneer you make. remember this. if you don’t like lemony or vinegar taste than add curd instead.
• If there is lots of cream floating over the milk, then there is no need to remove it. the natural cream present in the milk, makes the paneer soft.
• Once you add the lemon juice or vinegar than the milk will start to curdle. the milk has to completely curdle. you should be able to see the whitish or greenish whey.
• Once the milk coagulates/curdles completely than don’t boil it more. remove immediately and strain the milk.
• The overcooking  will yield a hard paneer once set.
• A way to keep the paneer soft in the fridge is to soak the paneer block  in water in a bowl and keep in the fridge. this way the paneer does not become hard.
• Alternately you can also soak the paneer in warm water after you have removed it from the fridge.

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