Quick Vegetable Curry with Paneer

Name: Quick Vegetable Curry with Paneer
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4 -6 portions
Ingredients: 4 medium shallots (peeled); 4 garlic cloves (peeled); 1.5 tablespoons fresh ginger (peeled); 3 medium ripe tomatoes; 1 red bell pepper; 2 tablespoons tomato puree; ½ red chilli (use more if you want to add more heat); 1 x400g tin chickpeas (drained); 250 g paneer cheese (cubed); 4-5 tablespoons olive oil; 1 bay leaf; 1.5 teaspoon cumin powder; 1 teaspoon each turmeric and coriander powder; 1 teaspoon curry powder (any); 1 teaspoon sea salt; Small bunch fresh coriander (cilantro, finely chopped)

October 1, 2017 By Monika Last Updated June 19, 2019 30 Comments

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This nutritious, low in fat, quick vegetarian curry with paneer is a delicious, easy to make, simple dish that comes together in under 30 minutes.

This quick and easy vegetable curry with paneer has a tomato based sauce, contains few spices and no coconut milk.

I absolutely love curry style recipes – they make incredible comfort dishes without necessarily being high in calories. In addition, they are endlessly versatile as well as ideal in vegetarian cooking – you can make a curry with virtually any vegetable.

This quick vegetable curry with paneer has the added advantage of being very uncomplicated and easy to make. Yes, I’ve taken a few shortcuts but I used good quality fresh ingredients and the result is a healthy delicious dish that cooks in under 30 minutes and can feed a family! All it needs is a bit of nice basmati rice to go with it (you’ll save time if you cook the rice while the curry is quietly simmering away).

Vegetable curry with paneer cheese

I love paneer cheese for its wonderful mildly sweetish flavour as well as the fact that it keeps its shape during cooking. This is why it’s ideal to add to stews, salads or curries. I can’t think of any other cheese with similar characteristics (halloumi is also a great cooking cheese although its high salt content makes it less versatile than paneer, in my opinion), which is what makes paneer so special.

Paneer’s texture when cooked reminds me a bit of tofu. In fact, there are more similarities, as both are also good sources of protein. While tofu is a soya product, however, paneer is a cheese, so can’t be used in vegan cooking.

Curried Quinoa Vegetable Casserole with Paneer

How to make a quick vegetable curry

This vegetarian curry recipe takes very little time to prepare. You will only have to chop the fresh ingredients roughly as they get pureed before cooking. So once you’ve heated up the oil with the spices simply pour in the pureed mixture, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Then add the chickpeas and continue cooking for another 15 minutes. In the meantime fry the paneer until lightly browned. Once the sauce is ready simply add in the paneer, freshly chopped cilantro and enjoy!

You may have noticed that the list of ingredients is not very long, as far as curries go, especially when it comes to spices. As this is meant to be a quick mid-week dish I opted for a combination of curry powder plus only 3 more spices, which I particularly enjoy in curry dishes: cumin, coriander and turmeric. There are various types of curry powders in the shops so just use your favourite.

What I also love about this easy veggie curry recipe is that it can be enjoyed the next day too. That’s if there are any leftovers…

Enjoy!

More easy vegetarian curry style recipes

Vegan Tofu Curry with Peas

Curried Lentils with Coconut Milk & Vegetables

Curried Quinoa Recipe with Grilled Pineapple & Pepper

Check out also this collection of over 12 healthy vegetarian pasta meals.

Vegetable curry with paneerin white-and-yellow bowl with saucepan and bowl of rice in background and fork to right.

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