Chilli Paneer Recipe with Video. Make Restaurant Style Chilli Paneer at home with this easy and fail proof recipe. Chilli Paneer makes an amazing appetiser or a side dish.
If you are a paneer lover, I’m sure you will love this one as it happens to be one of the most loved recipe in Indo Chinese cuisine.
Chilli Paneer makes a great vegetarian option for the Chilli Chicken and I’m sure once tasted even the non vegetarians will love this one.
Chilli Paneer tastes so good with either Noodles or Veg Fried Rice.
My children love it so much and as a result after making it so often, I have perfected the recipe with every try, that it tastes so good and will give the chilli paneer from the Restaurants a run for its money.
What about the Vegan option?
You can easily make this chilli paneer into a vegan dish by replacing paneer with Tofu. Other than that, simply use the rest of the ingredients and follow the instructions.
Can I avoid Deep Frying paneer?
If you do not want to deep fry paneer, you can make the batter a bit thick, dip & coat the paneer and instead of heating a wok of oil,
Preheat either your Air Fryer or Oven and bake the cubes. I did it once for the sake of recipe testing and the result was, it does not taste the same.
Our Favorite Video:
At least I did not like it. It did not taste as good as the deep fried version.
But trust me, when you make the batter in the right consistency and the oil is at the right temperature, the batter coated paneer cubes will not drink or use up more oil.
Substitues & Replacements:
You can substitute
- Soy sauce with Tamari
- Sugar with honey or cane sugar
- All purpose flour with whole wheat flour
- Red chilli powder with black pepper, the end result will look a bit darker in colour though
- White vinegar with Apple Cider Vinegar
- Tomato Ketchup with Tomato Sauce
- Paneer with Tofu
- Sesame Oil with any regular cooking oil
Sauce Mix:
When it comes to cooking Indo Chinese Recipes, speed is the key.
The ingredients have to cooked over high heat for shorter time to keep the ingredients crunchy and for the flavours and taste to shine through.
So it is imperative to keep all the ingredients prepared and nearby. Only the ingredient list and preparation time is lengthy when it comes to cooking Indo Chinese Recipes. The cooking part gets done very quickly.
I always mix up all the sauces before hand as a part of the ingredient prep work. This is one of the key reason for a better tasting Chilli Paneer.
You can taste test the sauce and add in more of any ingredient for which you find the taste lacking or inadequate.
The coating of the sauces while cooking is even and the recipe does not leave a rancid or bitter after taste of the sauces after you finish eating.
Points to note while making Chilli Paneer:
- The batter in which you coat the paneer should neither be too thick nor too thin. The batter should coat the cubes evenly.
- So add water little by little and do not dump the entire 1/2 cup at one go. I had 2 tbsp left over after mixing the batter.
- I did not add salt to the final dish as the salt from all the sauces were more than enough.
- Adding sesame oil enhances the taste of Chilli Paneer.
- Before adding the cornstarch slurry to the pan, make sure to give it a mix as the corn flour settles at the bottom of the bowl.
- Along with capsicum, you can also use coloured bell peppers.
- Add few drops of either Sriracha or Hot sauce to the sauce mix if you want the dish to be very spicy.
You can also serve this with Gobi Fried Rice or Brown Rice Pineapple Fried Rice.
Chilli Paneer Video Tutorial:
Chilli Paneer Recipe with Video below:
Chilli Paneer
Ingredients
For frying paneer:
- Paneer – 2oo gms
- Corn Flour – 3 tbsp
- All purpose flour – 2 tbsp
- Rice flour – 1 tbsp
- Red Chilli or Black pepper powder – 1/2 tsp
- Water – 1/2 cup approx.,
- Salt – to taste
- Oil – for deep frying
For stir frying:
- Onion – 1
- Capsicum – 1
- Green chilli – 2
- Celery or Spring Onion Greens – 1 tbsp
- Ginger – 1 tbsp finely chopped
- Garlic – 1 tbsp finely chopped
- Spring onion greens – 2 tbsp for garnishing
- Sesame Oil – 2 tbsp
For the sauce:
- Dark soy sauce – 2 tbsp
- White vinegar or ACV – 1 tbsp
- Tomato ketchup – 2 tbsp
- Red chilli sauce – 1 tbsp
- Sugar – 1/2 tsp
- Black pepper powder – 1/2 tsp
For the slurry:
- Corn flour or corn starch- 2 tbsp
- Water – 1/2 cup
Instructions
Preparation:
- Cut the paneer into cubes and set aside.
- Quarter the onions and separate the petals. Chop celery or spring onions finely. Cut capsicum into cubes and slit the green chillies.
For the slurry:
- In a bowl, mix the cornflour and water together until the corn flour dissolves completely and set aside till use.
For the sauces:
- In a mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients together – dark soy sauce, vinegar, ketchup, chili sauce, sugar, pepper and set aside.
For frying the paneer:
- In a wide mixing bowl, add all the flours – corn flour, all purpose flour, rice flour, salt and red chilli powder or black pepper.
- Add water little by little to make a batter. The batter should be free flowing but neither thick nor thin. Out of 1/2 cup water, 2 tbsp was left over after making the batter.
- Heat oil in a wok or kadai for deep frying.
- When it gets hot, dip each paneer cube into the batter and drop into the hot oil.
- Fry till the paneer cubes become golden brown in color and crisp in texture.
- Drain on to a kitchen paper towel and set aside.
To make chilli paneer:
- Heat a wok or pan with sesame oil.
- When the oil is hot, add garlic, ginger, celery or spring onions greens and saute for a minute.
- Add the cubed onions, capsicum, slit green chillies and saute over high flame for 2 mins for the vegetables to remain crisp.
- Reduce the flame to medium. Add in the prepared sauce mixture and mix well to combine.
- Give the corn flour slurry a mix, add it to the pan and mix well.
- The sauce or the gravy will start to thicken.
- Add in the fried paneer cubes.
- Toss to combine well for the paneer cubes to get well coated with the sauce.
- Switch off the flame and garnish with spring onion greens.
- Serve this chilli paneer hot with noodles or fried rice.
Video
I can have that whole bowl as a meal by itself–that’s how much I love Paneer.Looks absolutely delicious!
Looks delicious….love this anytime..:)
was just now at ur burgur dish and was loving it- this dish is truly making me salivate ! yummmm
Lovely Radhika..I ate this once at my friends place and since then have been craving for this…yum.
wow..what a colourful recipe.. lovely presentation.
Yum yum,looks so delicious..flavorful and yummy
love this chilli paneer
Mmmmm…i use to make this with chicken…interesting with paneer…looks so yummy n mouth watering here..
Awesome looking Chili Paneer. Loved the clicks.
Deepa
The paneer looks spicy and inviting!!!
Perfect with some fried rice..
Collect your awards waiting in my blog..
Looks delicious. Will give this a try soon. Different from what I made.
Yummy and spicy…nice clicks..
wow!!! that looks delicious:)
super clicks!!
Happy Blogging!!!!
Spicy & yummy, delicious.
yummy paneer..absolutely delicious..
Can I get some, looks mouth watering 🙂
looks fabbbb…drooling asusual
Chili panner looks so tempting..Nice clicks..
very juicy and delicious paneer dish.
OMG… What a tempting recipe.. lovely presentation dear..
wow i ove these perfectly coated paneer in the sauce…..nice presentation as well
thx for the invitatn but i think i am late as we had time till 15th june only
They look very tasty this recipe with chile … bssssMARIMI
Hmmm .. yummy .. drooling .. lovely Radhika.
Vardhini
Looks mouthwatering & droolworthy!!!!
Prathima Rao
Prats Corner
Chilly paneer looks simply out of the world, fingerlicking dish for the sure..
yummy yummy 🙂 Tempting chilli paneer 🙂
absolutely lip smacking
Beautifully present chili paneer. The curry looks totally delicious!
perfect recipe to tickle our palate. beautifully made.
Looks delicious and so so tempting..nice and easy recipe thanks for sharing!!
Thanks Radhika for dropping by and for the sweet comment !!
I’ll have to try this soon- it looks too tempting!
This looks delicious! lovely pics!
my favorite dish, yummy panner.