Recipe- Try These Chilli Paneer With Fried Rice Or Noodles

Make restaurant style Chilli Paneer at home with this step by step recipe!

Paneer (Indian cottage cheese) is tossed in a flavorful spicy sauce made with soy sauce, chili sauce, vinegar!

Tastes great with fried rice or hakka noodles.Indo-Chinese is a cuisine in itself and hugely popular back home in India.

It’s the Indian version of Chinese and as you can imagine has lot of vegetarian options and lots of spices too.In fact it’s so popular that we have a Indo-Chinese restaurant here in Seattle too!I grew up loving Indo-Chinese, I actually thought this is how Chinese food was supposed to be.

It was only when I went to college in Scotland and tasted some real Chinese food I realized how wrong I was!They aren’t even remotely similar, first of all the Indian version has tons of vegetarian options, like if you go to a Indo-chinese restaurant, half of the options on the menu will be vegetarian and then of course the spices!

One of the really popular Indo-Chinese dishes is Chilli Paneer and I am really excited to share my restaurant style chilli paneer recipe with you guys today!

Ingredients

250 grams paneer cut into cubes
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper ground
water to make a free flowing batter, little less than 1/2 cup
oil for frying, I used canola oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce 30 ml, I used 1 tablespoon regular soy sauce and 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar 15 ml
3 teaspoons green chili sauce 15 ml
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup 30 ml
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1.5 tablespoons sesame oil 22 ml
1 tablespoon avocado oil 15 ml
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 stalk celery finely chopped
1 green chili sliced
1 medium red onion quartered and petals separated
1 green pepper cut into squares
3-4 tablespoons water
green onions chopped, for garnishing

Method

* Cut paneer into cubes. To a large bowl, add 3 tablespoons cornstarch, 3 tablespoons flour along with salt, pepper.

* Add water to make a free flowing batter, it should neither be thick nor thin. I added little less than 1/2 cup water here. Meanwhile heat oil in a wok/kadai on medium heat to deep fry the paneer.

* Dip each paneer cube into the batter. And then add them into the hot oil.

* Fry until the paneer pieces get golden brown and crispy from both sides. Drain the fried paneer on paper towel.

* Meanwhile, in a measuring jar or bowl, add soy sauce (I use regular and dark soy sauce, 1 tablespoon each), rice vinegar, green chili sauce, tomato ketchup and sugar. Mix until all is well combined and set aside.

* Also mix 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 3 tablespoons water until cornstarch dissolves completely and set aside.

* Heat sesame oil and avocado oil in wok on high heat.
* Once oil is hot, add the ginger, garlic, celery and green chili. Saute for 1 minute.

* Then add the quartered onion and peppers. Cook for 2 minutes. Veggies should remain crunchy and you should cook on high heat.

* Add in the prepared sauce and mix and lower heat to medium.

* Then add in the prepared cornstarch slurry. Mix well, sauce will begin to thicken. Add additional 3 to 4 tablespoons water.

* Stir in the fried paneer cubes. Toss to combine the paneer with the sauce.

* Turn off heat and garnish with green onions.

* Serve Chilli Paneer with noodles or rice.