Paneer Rice

This pilau paneer rice recipe is chock full of vegetables – the kind of thing your body craves. And what’s more, it comes together in well under an hour. 

Even more importantly, this is such a flavourful dish that can be made any night of the week – either as a main meal or as a side for a bigger dinner party. 

You don’t have to be dogmatic about the recipe for this paneer rice either. If you don’t have all of the specific ingredients for this dish, just use whatever you have on hand. Just make sure that will cook in a similar length of time as the basmati rice does in this recipe. 

But if you do want to add some ingredients that take longer (or much shorter) than the rice, take a look at my primer on one-pot rice recipes to get all the info you need to make something very similar to this recipe with any flavour profile you like!

Before we get into it, as always, let’s look at a tour of the process and the ingredients…

How do you make paneer rice?

In a nutshell, this recipe cooks down onions and garlic before adding spices, vegetables, paneer and rice. Then just add water and cook everything together until the rice and veg is tender and no more water is left. 

At that point, simply shut off the heat and steam for at least 15 minutes (and up to half an hour) before serving to ensure the paneer rice is as fluffy as it can be.

The easy version doesn’t get much simpler than that, but there are a few tips and tricks to really take it to the next level – though I appreciate this is no longer a true one-pot rice recipe if you do that!

Why? Well, that’s because I’ll soak the paneer in a bowl of well salted hot water before adding it to the mix. And to make this a truly hearty midweek feast, I also love adding potatoes too.

Now, you absolutely can add potatoes with the vegetables towards the start, giving them some time to saute before adding the cooking water, and simmering them along with the rice. If you do this, you may also want to adjust the water quantity, because the potatoes will also absorb some water as well as the rice.

Parboiling Potatoes

But if you really want to make this dish into something truly special, I’d recommend giving the potatoes a par-boil in salted water first to ensure they have the best possible flavour. 

And if you’re worried about overcooking the spuds, then a simple trick is to add a capful of vinegar to the water when parboiling – the acid in the vinegar will prevent the potatoes’ cell walls from breaking down too quickly, ensuring they become tender, but don’t fall apart.

These steps ensures you get soft and creamy potato and juicy paneer in your paneer rice, but you can also just add everything in together at the same time. Try for yourself to see which outcome you prefer.

What type of rice can I use for pilau rice?

To make sure the rice is fluffy and not sticky, I recommend using basmati rice here. Preferably the longest grain basmati you have available. Any standard long-grain rice will work here too, but I’d stay away from jasmine rice or especially shorter grains like arborio or paella rice.

If you do use anything other than basmati, be sure to tweak the amount of liquid you use accordingly. This recipe uses the 2:1 ratio needed to cook perfect basmati rice on the stovetop.

I always rinse the rice and soak in cold water before draining and adding to the paneer rice.

What spices go into pilau rice?

Honestly, the great thing about one pot rice recipes is that you can add whatever sort of flavour you like!

Check out the primer on one pot rice dishes for more examples. But, ultimately, the whole point is that by using the same technique you can create an almost-infinite amount of dishes with different flavour profiles. All you have to do is switch up the spices and some of the vegetables!

This particular recipe will use cumin seeds and mustard seeds, and then add garam masala, turmeric, coriander powder and some chilli powder to taste. But you can easily experiment with your own flavour profiles – perhaps with the addition of some ground fenugreek at the ground spices step, or some cardamom or cinnamon sticks right at the start when adding the whole spices. Feel free to try it out!

Let me know what spice mix works best for you in the comments.

Skip to the full recipe below if you’re ready to get started, but here’s a quick run through each of the steps in a bit more detail.

Onions and Garlic

This is one of those times when I don’t think it matters too much how you chop the onions or the garlic.

Normally with other one-pot rice recipes – like paella or risotto – I advocate for chopping the onions finely. The reason being that you’d normally want small chunks of onion no bigger than your grains of rice. Yeah, chopping onions that fine can be a faff, but it’s worth it in a creamy risotto where the onions seem to sort of melt away.

For this paneer rice, however, you’ll add some chunkier bits of veg later anyway. And as a result, it matters less how your onions are chopped. I still prefer a dice here, but if knife skills aren’t your thing then don’t worry too much for this one – you can even leave them in slices if you’re that kind of cook!

The Vegetables

As I said, I love to add a potato or two to this dish, and I chop them into reasonably small chunks. I know, it’s carbs on carbs – but I just think it adds an extra texture and a bit of added indulgence. 

And why would I share a recipe with you that didn’t include added indulgence?

In order to make them soft, I parboil to ensure they aren’t undercooked at the end. Bear in mind, basmati only takes 10 minutes!

That said, what’s great about this recipe is you can substitute other ingredients. Yes, you can absolutely leave out the potatoes or sub in something else you have to hand instead. 

This recipe also calls for green beans, which are perfect if you have them lying in the cupboard or even in the freezer. If not, you can try roughly chopped cabbage or kale, some carrots (chopped fairly small) would work or even some frozen peas added towards the end of cooking.

Really, this can be a super healthy veggie meal thrown together with whatever is in the cupboard!

The Paneer

I love soaking paneer before using it in this paneer rice dish because – as in a lot of my recipes – the extra step gives me a chance to salt it first. 

Paneer is naturally milky and I find it can be slightly bland if you don’t marinate or fry it first. But pre-soaking in hot, well salted water really helps both the texture and the flavour.

I recommend soaking the paneer as the very first step in this recipe, which means it’ll be ready by the time you need to add it to the pot. But if you want to skip this step go ahead, you’ll still get a good result. After all, you will simmer it in a flavourful cooking broth later.

And that leads to my recommended pro-tip: I especially love using the salted soaking water as part of my cooking liquid later in the recipe. 

Cut the cheese into whatever sized chunks you like the look of. For me, slices work well, but in the photos for this i’ve diced into more standard cubes. Up to you.

The Rice

The star of the show! As you know, basmati is my preferred type of rice here, but whatever you decide, rinse it first before you start cooking and then leave it to soak in a bowl of water until you’re ready to add it. Drain it first, obviously!

Water or stock?

Again, you can use either. I prefer water, partly because I think it ensures you don’t overpower the subtle flavours from the spices. And also partly because I like to mix in the paneer soaking water, and top it up with some fresh boiling water out of the kettle.

If you’re using stock that’s already salty (like a stock cube, for example), then omit salt from the recipe, or salt to taste.

Finishing touches

This will steam for 15-20 minutes after cooking in order to help the rice become as fluffy as it can possibly be. I’d try not to open the lid too much at this stage, but this could be a good time to add some leafy greens that will wilt with the steam. Think spinach, for example.

Serve this alongside some sort of sauce-based curry or just load it up in a bowl to have on its own!