Saag paneer with okra and chickpeas

This dish starts as a classic Indian saag paneer — spinach with cheese cubes.

We bulked it out by adding home-canned chickpeas and home-canned okra. You can omit those though if you want to make a pure saag paneer, or don’t have them.

To be clear: this is a cooking with canning recipe, not a recipe for canning.

This recipe uses:

• Home-canned spinach
• Home-canned chickpeas
• Home-canned okra

Yield: 8 x 1 cup (250 g / 8 oz) servings

4.5 from 2 votes

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Contents hide

• 1 Saag paneer with okra and chickpeas
  • 1.1 Ingredients
  • 1.2 Instructions
• 2 Recipe notes
• 3 Nutrition

Saag paneer with okra and chickpeas

A take on saag paneer, made with home-canned chickpeas and home-canned okra

Course Side Dish

Cuisine Indian

Keyword Chickpeas, Okra

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Yield 8 1 cup (250 g / 8 oz)

Calories 528 kcal

Ingredients

• 1 half-litre jar home-canned chickpeas (1 pint jar)
• 2 half-litre jars home-canned okra (2 pint jars)
• 1 litre jar home-canned spinach (Or kale. 1 quart)
• 500 g paneer cheese (1 lb)
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 teaspoon cumin seed
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon gingerroot (fresh, grated)
• 1 teaspoon garlic (minced)
• 1 tomato (chopped)
• 4 tablespoons coconut milk powder
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 250 ml water (1 cup / 8 oz)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

1. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Place into a bowl.
2. Drain the okra; add to bowl.
3. Drain the spinach, pressing it a bit to get excess water out. Chop up on chopping board; add to the bowl.
4. Set the bowl aside.
5. Cube the paneer cheese; brown in the heated 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan. About 5 minutes. Remove from pan and add to bowl.
6. Add the second tablespoon of oil to the pan.
7. Add the spices from the garam masala down to and including the garlic. Add as well the chopped tomato. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes.
8. Mix the coconut milk powder, the corn starch and the water.
9. Add to frying pan. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes.
10. Add the contents of the bowl.
11. Cover, and let cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Recipe notes

• For the garlic and ginger, you can just use from a jar.
• If you don’t have coconut milk powder, you can use coconut milk from a jar. Or you can use heavy cream, or yoghurt.
• Indian paneer cheese is a cheese that does not melt during cooking, but rather, holds its shape. Instead of paneer, you could try halloumi cheese, or firm tofu, or just omit.
• Instead of spinach, you could try kale or another green of your choice.

Nutrition

Serving size: 1 cup (250 g / 8 oz)

A lot of the calories come from the chickpeas, but those are good calories.

Per serving:

• 528 calories, 99 mg sodium

* Nutrition info provided by MyFitnessPal