Homemade Paneer (Indian cottage cheese) - easy, fresh, soft paneer preparation at home. Paneer or cottage cheese is quite popular in India and we do make variety of recipes with it, especially for kids. I am sure everyone have their own version of making paneer at home. Here is my version and it comes out pretty good every time.
Homemade paneer is far a way better as it's fresh and I am sure you will not go in for store bought ones once you make at home. You can introduce paneer to your baby after 8 months as a finger food. Here are few recipes so far I have posted in my blog with paneer. Do check this out and try some recipes 🙂 Choose recipes according to your babies age and adjust spices according to your baby's tolerance level.
- Paneer Dal masala (ideal for 8+ months babies)
- Paneer Dosa (ideal for 8+ months babies)
- Paneer Butter Masala (ideal for 1 year+ babies)
- Paneer Jalfrezi (ideal for 10 months+ babies)
- Kadai Paneer (ideal for 1 year+ babies)
- Palak Paneer (ideal for 10 months+ babies)
Homemade Paneer Recipe for Babies, Toddlers and Kids | How to makePaneer at Home
Ingredients
- Full cream milk - 1 litre
- Curd or Lemon juice - ½ cup or 2 tbsp
Instructions
- Boil the milk in medium low flame for 5 minutes. Stir it occasionally. When it's about to boil add curd or lemon juice. Stir it gently. The mixture will start to curdle.
- Continue stirring gently until it completely curdles.
- Set the colander/strainer in a large bowl. Place a cheese cloth or muslin cloth over it. Pour the curdled mixture to it gently.
- After transferring the entire curdled mixture, gather the corners of the cloth and tie it up under sink. Let it stand for 1 hour at least or until the water is completely drained off. Squeeze out the cheese cloth occasionally to drain off the water. Once the water is completely drained off , open the cloth.
- Place it in a flat platform and keep a weight over it (I placed in iron dosa tawa and a pan over it and used a big stone to press it).
- Wait for 2 to 3 hours to get it set. Then open and remove from cloth carefully. Refrigerate it overnight and cut into cubes in the morning and store.
Nutrition
Procedure :
- Squeeze out and drip out the water gently.
- The water dripping time depends on the cloth used. Cheese cloth or muslin cloth work faster.
- The setting time of paneer and dripping time is very important to get soft paneer with right texture. Don't get urged.
- U can use either lemon juice or curd. Curd gives more volume to the paneer than lemon.
- Keep it refrigerated and consume with in a 2-3 days.
- Color and texture of the paneer may vary with the type of milk used.
Anonymous
Hi kalyani ....im n abroad i dnt hav muslin or cheese cloth...can i tried dis wit normal or banian cloth
gkfooddiary
You can use any light white cloth. Eg: white dupatta or dhotis
Abhinaya
Nice recipe .will try it
poorni
hi kalyani!
my daughter is 9.5 mnths old. how to introduce paneer for her.she hasnt yet strtd wth finger foods. kindly suggest
Kalyani
you can give paneer as paneer puree and ghee fried paneer.
Recipe for Paneer Puree:https://gkfooddiary.com/paneer-puree-baby/
Recipe for Paneer Fry:https://gkfooddiary.com/pan-fried-paneer-baby/
Suganya
Hi! Thanks for the recipe! How much is the curd/lemon to be added to how much milk?
Kalyani
1/2 cup curd or 2 tbsp lemon juice
Sneha
Any other fruit substitute for paneer puree??
Kalyani
Means?
Farha
Can in use plain yogurt instead of curd
Kalyani
yes