Homemade Paneer
I never knew how easy it was to make paneer! The texture of this one is a little more crumbly than I’d like it to be, but overall it turned out really good!
Ingredients
- 2L full cream milk
- ¼ cup white vinegar (lemon juice would also work)
- 3 cups water (to wash the milk solids)
Method
- Boil the milk in a large pot, on a medium heat. Keep stirring the milk till it reaches boiling point to ensure that the milk doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot and burn.
- As soon as the milk starts boiling, turn off the heat and gradually add the vinegar, while stirring gently. You will notice the milk solids starts to separate from the liquid.
- Place a clean cloth, preferably one with tiny holes, over a strainer/colander that’s placed over another large bowl. A cool trick I learnt from my granny to ensure that the cloth you’re using is really clean, is to place the cloth into a bowl and pour boiling hot water over it. Once it’s cooled down just a bit, you can squeeze the water out. Be careful as the cloth will still be very hot.
- Pour the curdled milk into the cloth to remove the whey (liquid part).
- Pour water over the milk solids left in the cloth.
- Lift the cloth from the strainer/colander, gather the corners, turn and tighten the cloth to squeeze out excess liquids.
- Turn the cloth upside down onto a flat surface and place a heavy object on the top. Make sure that excess liquid is able to drip off the flat surface. Allow the excess liquid to drain out for 45 minutes. You can double this time for a harder texture.
- Remove the heavy object and open the cloth slowly. The paneer will be set.
- You can cut the paneer into blocks immediately for cooking or store in the fridge, immersed in water for a few days. Alternatively you can store in an airtight container in the freezer, for a month, at most. I do however recommend making small batches that you can use within a few days – fresh is best!
- This recipe made approximately 350g of paneer. It just depends on the brand of milk you’re using as well – a creamier milk would yield a greater volume of milk solids.