Paneer: Homemade Indian Cheese

I have an ongoing obsession with palak paneer, which is spinach with Indian cheese. It's so good, and I have yet to make it myself yet, but I did manage to make paneer today, which was a baby step in the right direction.

I never knew how easy it is to make! And cheap: the whole batch cost me less than $4.00 to make.

FYI: you will need a cheesecloth and a fine mesh strainer!

Ingredients:

1/2 gallon of whole milk
4 tbsp lemon juice

And that's it! Seriously!

First bring your milk to boil over low, stirring occasionally and being careful not to scorch the milk.

When it begins to boil, add in your lemon juice, stirring constantly but gently, until the milk begins to seperate, like this:

Remove from heat and pour into a cheesecloth bag, over your strainer. You may have to do this in small rounds, instead of dumping the whole thing in at one time.

It will look like a crumbly sort of mound. Cover the top with cheesecloth, leave in the strainer over a pan, and place lots of heavy objects on top to flatten it out. My contraption looked like this:

Let sit for about 1.5 hours, then carefully remove from the cheesecloth. It might not be pretty, I'm working on that!

 

At this point, you can cube it up and store in the fridge for up to a week. Pan fry it and add to your favorite recipes! I added mine to a savory tomato and spinach masala.