I first made this dish last fall on the stove-top but quickly decided it should be one that needed to adapted for the slow cooker. In this house we pretty much adore (inhale?) foods that can be served over rice. So any of those kinds of foods that can be made in the slow cooker quickly become MY favorites because I can start dinner in the morning along with programming the rice cooker and my job is done before breakfast.
We love to make up a big pot of a couple of different Indian inspired dishes along with some Basmati rice and naan. I usually try to make about 2x as much as we could possibly eat so that we can have leftovers to last for the week, that's truly how much we love this stuff.
Are you familiar with paneer? It's kind of like a cottage cheese except it's more solid and in bigger pieces. I know it can be homemade but I took advantage of the fact we have several Indian groceries nearby and purchased a couple of premade packages.
The sauce is a simple tomato base with just a bit of tangy yogurt and some cream to round it all out. Lots of spices go in here so your house will smell amazing with this simmering away all day. Although it never hurts if you can crack a window in the kitchen a bit when you are cooking with this many spices 🙂
Slow Cooker Paneer Makhani
Ingredients
- 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
- ¼ cup diced white onion
- 2 teaspoons jarred minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon jarred minced ginger
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 bay leaf
- 16 ounces prepared paneer for later (2 packages)
- 1 cup heavy cream for later
- ¼ cup plain yogurt for later
Instructions
- Add all ingredients except for paneer, cream and yogurt to slow cooker
- Let simmer for up to 8 hours on low or 4 on high
- Remove bay leaf
- Add cream and yogurt and stir to combine well
- Add paneer and let heat through for about 30 minutes
- Stir carefully as paneer will fall apart easily
- Serve with rice and naan or as desired
Notes
Nutrition
I really enjoyed this! Kept the sauce largely the same, but with different additions based on what was available to me.
I sauteed the garlic/ginger/onion because my slow cooker is an instant pot style thing, and briefly sauteed the spices with them when the onion softened. Might have helped the spices come through better as the spice quantity was about right. Used a little less chilli as mine was hot, the rest of the spices a touch more. Paneer was *very* expensive in the current inflationary environs and I didn't have time to make some myself. So I added two tins of chickpeas (drained and rinsed) and only used half the paneer. I also used a green capsicum, diced into ~1cm squares, sauteed with the onion, on account of i needed to use it before it went bad! Added maybe half a cup of water, and about 1tsp salt.
All of this worked very well! And the chickpeas means it had more protein. Everyone was impressed.