Schezwan Paneer

This Schezwan Paneer is delicious, bursting with flavors and is ridiculously easy to make. This dish features crisp Paneer tossed in a sweet and spicy sauce, it’s delicious! Serve it as an appetizer or as a side with some Noodles, or Chinese Fried Rice, and you’ve got yourself a complete Indo-Chinese Meal! In this post I share the recipe from scratch including making the sauce. If you have some store bought Schezwan Sauce you can omit making it here. I also share tips to air fry and pan fry the paneer for a healthy dish.

Schezwan Paneer is a lesser known Indo-Chinese appetizer where crisp batter fried paneer is tossed in a super aromatic and spicy schezwan sauce. Like any other Indian Chinese appetizer, this also comes in 2 versions – semi dry and gravy. You will find this dish most often on the Indian-Chinese restaurant menus and Chinese fast food places along with Chilli Paneer.

Schezwan sauce forms the base of this dish and is made with a paste of red chilies, which is sautéed along with oil, ginger, garlic, onions, soya sauce and sichuan peppercorn. This sauce is used in a lot of dishes like fried rice, Schezwan chicken and Schezwan noodles.

Paneer being a bland cheese goes so well in this spicy sauce. The restaurant version of schezwan paneer is deep fried but you can also air fry or pan fry the it for a healthier version. A lot of times we also omit the frying part and toss the raw paneer in the sauce directly. In the end you will have soft white paneer coated with delicious schezwan sauce.

You can also use this in your Paneer Sandwich, Paneer Kathi Roll or throw it over a pizza base.

Ingredients & Substitutes

Paneer: is the star ingredient in this dish. To make it vegan you may use extra firm pressed tofu or parboiled dice potatoes.

Schezwan Sauce: Here I show how to make it from scratch, you can use store bought sauce. To make the sauce from scratch, dried chilies are used and they can be replaced with red chili powder, schezwan pepper corn can be substituted with ground black pepper, soya sauce can be replaced with tamari and rice vinegar with white or apple cider vinegar.

Aromatics: we use ginger garlic, spring onions, bell peppers and celery. You may omit celery and bell peppers, replace spring onions with regular onions.

More Paneer Recipes
Paneer Manchurian
Garlic Paneer
Paneer Tikka
Paneer Popcorn

Photo Guide

How to make Schezwan Paneer (Stepwise photos)

Preparation

1. Soak 7 to 8 dried red chilies in half cup hot water until softened. I have deseeded the chilies as we do not like the seeds in the sauce. For low heat, use Kashmiri red chilies.

2. Add the chilies along with 2 tbsps of water. You can also use fresh water to make the paste less spicy.

3. Make smooth or slightly coarse paste. Set this aside.

4. Add 3 to 4 tablespoons corn flour, 3 to 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour (maida), salt and ¼ teaspoon black pepper.

5. Pour water and make a free flowing batter. The batter must be of medium thick consistency. If the batter is too thick, the paneer bites will turn hard.

6. Transfer the paneer cubes.

7. Coat them.

Fry Paneer

8. Heat oil in a kadai for deep frying. When the oil is hot enough, drop a small portion of batter to check if the oil is hot enough. The batter will rise if the oil is hot.

9. Gently drop the batter coated paneer bites to the hot oil. Do not disturb them as soon as you drop them in the oil. Let them fry for 2 to 3 mins, then stir and fry on a medium high flame.

10. Remove them to a kitchen tissue or a cooling rack when they turn crisp. Do not over fry as they turn hard. Set these aside.

Make Spicy Sauce

11. Heat 1½ tbsp of fresh oil in a pan or wok. Next add ½ tablespoon ginger and ¾ tablespoon garlic too. Saute for a min. Add 2 tablespoons chopped spring onions, 2 to 3 tablespoons celery and slightly crushed ½ teaspoon schezwan peppers as well. Saute for 2 to 3 mins.

12. Add 2 tbsps of red chili paste. Do not use more than that otherwise it may make the dish very spicy. Add salt and sugar.

13. Saute for 2 to 3 mins. Remove the schezwan peppers if you have used. I prefer to remove them before adding water as the cooked peppers flavor do not go well with us. Pour water.

14. Mix and cook until the oil separates.

15. The moisture evaporates and the sauce thickens. Add ½ to ¾ vinegar or tomato sauce.

16. Pour ¾ tablespoon soya sauce. Saute for just a minute.

Toss the Paneer

17. Add ¼ cup sliced capsicums. You can also skip if you do not have. Saute for a minute.

18. Mix 1 teaspoon corn flour with ½ to ¾ water and pour it to the pan.

19. Mix well and taste test. The gravy has to be spicy, sweet and slightly sour. Next when the sauce turns thick, then turn off the stove.

20. Allow the sauce to cool down a bit. Then add the fried paneer bites. Coat the paneer well in the sauce.

Serve schezwan paneer as a starter or side with fried rice or noodles.

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This Recipe was first published in January 2018.