Tandoori Paneer Tikka / Grilled flavorful Cottage Cheese / Paneer Kebab

 

Paneer Tikka is the most ordered vegetarian appetizer in the Indian restaurants. This amazingly popular and tasty appetizer originated in northern India. Today, it is enjoyed around the world. It is also known as Tandoori Paneer Tikka or Paneer Kebab or grilled cottage cheese. Paneer Tikka is made from chunks of paneer (cottage cheese) marinated in spiced yogurt and then grilled. Paneer means hard / solid cottage cheese. Tikka means chunks of grilled food. It is a vegetarian dish, and its preparation is like chicken tikka. Traditionally, Paneer Tikka is grilled in traditional Indian clay oven called tandoor. But it is not very common to have tandoor at home. So usually, home-made paneer tikka is made in regular oven, air fryer, or just a regular pan (tawa).

This recipe includes four different ways of grilling paneer tikka and two different ways of marinating tikkas. It can be made from store bought paneer (cottage cheese) or home-made cottage cheese. If you decide to make it from home made cottage cheese, make the cottage cheese hard and solid. For making cottage cheese solid, you need to tie the cloth very tight and put a weight on it. Keep it this way for longer time in the refrigerator. Once consistency is hard and solid, cottage cheese is ready to be grilled.

Usually for paneer tikka, paneer (cottage cheese) chunks and vegetables are marinated for around 6 – 12 hours. This type of long marinating gives unique and delicious taste to our appetizer. But it can be made with different kind of marinate too that requires less time and yet makes delicious paneer tikka. Both these marinates can be used to marinate different vegetables, fruits, and meat to make different kinds of tikkas (chunks of grilled food).

 

How to make Paneer at home

• Bring the milk to boil.
• Let it cool a bit say for 5 minutes.
• Add lemon juice of about two lemons / limes per half gallon of milk.
• Let the milk curdle completely.
• Once the milk turns acidic, the milk protein coagulates and forms clumps called curds. These curds will get separated from the watery portion of the milk.
• Take a big deep vessel.
• Cover it with white cheese cloth or clean white cotton cloth.
• Transfer the curdled milk to the cloth and strain the milk curds and separate them from the watery part of the curdled milk.
• All milk curds will be separated and be there on the cheese cloth or white cotton cloth. Rest of the watery portion will be collected in the deep vessel underneath the cloth.
• With a spoon bring all the milk curds to the center of the cloth.
• Bring all the ends of the cloth in the middle and tie it really tight.
• Now hang this cheese / paneer in the cloth for about 2 hours.
• If your cheese has not solidified enough put a heavy weight on the tied cloth for another few hours.
• Put this setting in the refrigerator over night.
• Hard and Solid cottage cheese / Paneer is ready.

 

Preparation Time for Paneer Tikka – Varies from 45 minutes – 12 hours depends on how you want to marinate.

Cooking Time – 30 – 45 minutes

 

Necessary Ingredients to make Paneer Tikka

• 400 grams Cottage Cheese / Paneer Chunks

• 3 – 4 cups of plain yogurt (curd)
• ½ green bell pepper (capsicum) chopped into big squares.
• ½ red bell pepper (capsicum) chopped into big squares.
• ½ yellow bell pepper (capsicum) chopped into big squares.
• ½ orange bell pepper (capsicum) chopped into big squares.
• ½ red Onion chopped into big squares.
• ½ tablespoon of grated ginger (ginger paste)
• ½ tablespoon of grated garlic (garlic paste)
• Salt to taste
• Red chili powder according to your taste
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin coriander powder
• 2 – 3 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 teaspoon kasoori methi
• 1 teaspoon chaat masala (optional)
• 2 tablespoon roasted gram flour (optional)
• Cooking oil of your choice.

Necessary Equipment

• Oven or air fryer or pan or tawa.
• Skewers made of metal or wooden.
• If using wooden skewers, soak them in the water for about 20 – 30 minutes before putting them in the oven.

 

How to marinate Paneer (cottage cheese) and vegetables – Recipe 1

• Take a big deep bowl.
• Add yogurt to it.

• Add salt, turmeric, chili powder, chaat masala, garam masala, cumin-coriander powder (optional), kasoori methi, ginger paste, and garlic paste to the yogurt.
• Stir everything well until the mixture is smooth.

• Marinate cottage cheese chunks and chopped vegetables in this spiced / flavored yogurt.

• Cover the bowl with a lid and put it in the refrigerator.
• Let the paneer chunks and chopped vegetables marinate for 6 – 12 hours.
• I like to do preparation the night before and I let paneer and vegetable marinate at least overnight. This gives amazing flavor to paneer tikka.
• The left over spiced yogurt marinate can be used as a dip for paneer tikka.

 

How to marinate Paneer (cottage cheese) and vegetables – Recipe 2

• Roast about 2 tablespoon of gram flour until it is aromatic.
• Take a big deep bowl.
• Add yogurt to it.
• Add roasted gram flour, salt, turmeric, chili powder, chaat masala, garam masala, cumin-coriander powder (optional), kasoori methi, ginger paste, and garlic paste to the yogurt.
• Stir everything well until the mixture is smooth.

• Marinate cottage cheese chunks and chopped vegetables in this spiced / flavored yogurt.
• Cover the bowl with a lid and put it in the refrigerator.
• Let the paneer chunks and chopped vegetables marinate for 30 minutes – 3 hours. Time of marinating is minimum 30 minutes. If you have more time on hand, you can marinate it for longer time.
• Adding gram flour is not part of traditional recipe. But it is used by restaurant chefs now a days to give nice aroma and for quick marinating the paneer tikka, chicken tikkas, veg tikkas, etc.
• Gram flour acts as binding agent between spiced yogurt and cottage cheese/ paneer chunks.

 

How to grill / make Paneer Tikkas – Method 1 – (Airfryer or Oven with skewer)

• Take skewers, insert marinated cottage cheese / paneer chunks and vegetables in the skewer.
• Preheat the oven at 350 F (177 C) for about 10 minutes. If using airfryer of your convection oven, preheat at 450 F (232 C).

• Put the tikkas in the airfryer and let it grill for about 10 – 20 minutes until tikkas are golden brown.
• If using oven, arrange the skewers on the baking tray and bake it for about 10 – 20 minutes at 350 F. Every 5 minutes, keep turning the skewers on other sides, and let it bake/ grill on all sides until tikkas are golden brown in color. Please use mitten while handling hot things.

• Serve / eat the tikkas hot with cilantro mint chutney and left-over spiced yogurt marinate dip.

 

How to grill / make Paneer Tikkas – Method 2 – (Oven without skewer)

• Take a baking tray, line it up with aluminum foil and lightly grease it with cooking oil.
• Preheat the oven at 350 F (177 C) for about 10 minutes.
• Arrange the marinated chunks of paneer and vegetables in baking tray about 2 centimeters apart from each other.
• Put the baking tray in the oven.
• Bake / Grill the tikkas for about 20 minutes or until they turn golden brown.
• Keep turning the tikkas every 5 minutes with the help of fork and mittens. So, the tikkas are grilled on all the sides.

• Serve / eat the tikkas hot with cilantro mint chutney and left-over spiced yogurt marinate dip.

 

How to grill / make Paneer Tikkas – Method 3 – (on pan / tawa without skewer)

• Take a pan or a tawa.
• Grease it with cooking oil.
• Heat it on the medium flame.

• Arrange the marinated chunks of paneer and vegetables in baking tray about 2 centimeters apart from each other.
• Cover it with the lid.
• Cook / Grill the tikkas for about 20 minutes or until they turn golden brown.

• Keep turning the tikkas every 5 minutes with the help of fork and mittens. So, the tikkas are grilled on all the sides.

• Serve / eat the tikkas hot with cilantro mint chutney and left-over spiced yogurt marinate dip.

 

How to grill / make Paneer Tikkas – Method 4 – (on pan / tawa with skewer)

• Insert the marinated chunks of paneer and vegetables into the skewers.
• Take a pan or a tawa.
• Grease it with cooking oil.
• Heat it on the medium flame.
• Arrange the skewers on the pan / tawa.
• Cover it with the lid.
• Cook / Grill the tikkas for about 20 minutes or until they turn golden brown.
• Keep turning the tikkas every 5 minutes. So, the tikkas are grilled on all the sides.

• Serve / eat the tikkas hot with cilantro mint chutney and left-over spiced yogurt marinate dip.

 

Click the link below to know how to make Cilantro Mint Chutney / Dip

Cilantro Mint Chutney – Dip / Coriander Mint Chutney – Dip / Fudina Chutney

Click the link below to know how to make Garam masala at home

Garam Masala Recipe link

 

Tips –

• I like to marinate different fruits and vegetables like apples, yellow squash, zucchini, etc. too and grill them with above method.
• If you do not have any of the above-mentioned spices, you can skip them and your tikkas will taste just as good with just yogurt, salt, chili powder, garlic, and ginger paste.
• If you have dietary restrictions and want to skip any of the above ingredients, please go ahead this appetizer will taste good.
• You can use above recipes to make any kind of tikkas with any kind of vegetables and meat.
• You can use the similar yogurt based marinate and grilling techniques to make very popular appetizers like Chicken Tikka.

 

Subscribe to this website and Our YouTube Channel for Instant updates and step by step recipes

Find, like, share and Subscribe  FoodRecipes-by-eatwritecreate on YouTube.

Subscribe to this website and our YouTube Channel for step by step creative Arts and Craft Tutorials.

Find, like, share and Subscribe  ArtsandCraft-by-eatwritecreate on YouTube.