Saag “ph”aneer with brown jasmine rice

Great easy recipe with most ingredients on hand. After running out to a smaller health food store for sauerkraut and a loaf of crusty bread, I had to turn around and try a regular supermarket for both.

Looks like the smaller market already sold out of bread and they only had 6-9$ jars of sauerkraut. I couldn’t really stomach paying that much for fermented cabbage with spices when I’ve bought organic kraut for $2. Off I went to a regular market in search of a simple crusty bread and butter dinner.

While I was looking for organic sauerkraut, I saw frozen saag paneer Indian dinners…and was instantly steered towards a new meal idea. 

The store did not have pre-made paneer so I had to use “ph”aneer (kind of like krab). Phaneer isn’t a real thing outside of a word I made up on my blog. It’s just fresh mozzarella cheese which I cut up into cubes and added on top after I cooked everything.

I absolutely loved this paneer recipe from Aarti on Food Network which is all vegetables, flavor, and light on oil and fat. It is very tasty and is the freshest saag curry I’ve ever had. It was still bright green! 

I didn’t make my own paneer obviously. In the saag recipe, I used McCormick’s garam masala and did not make my own. The published garam masala recipe seemed to be overbearing on cloves, but this didn’t affect me.

I did not use as much chili pepper or cayenne pepper. I only diced in half a jalapeno with seeds and sprinkled some cayenne at the end. I put in closer to 4 tsp of coriander since I’ve had mine for a bit and it could be less potent.

I did follow to a tee sauteeing the onion, garlic and ginger until browned. I used a couple heaping spoonfuls of Seven Stars Farm plain yogurt. Definitely easier than my previous attempt at saag curry.

Yum! Bon appetit.