Paneer Patties Recipe (Paneer Tikki)

Paneer Patties is an easy and quick cottage snack made with a handful of ingredients like Indian cottage cheese, mashed potatoes, cornflour and seasonings. It makes for a good tea-time or Evening Snack served with a side of green chutney or tomato ketchup. Make this delicious Paneer Tikki with my easy step-by-step photo guide.

About Paneer Patties Recipe

This aloo paneer tikki is very simple, quick and has both paneer and potatoes. The potatoes are used as a binding ingredient.

I also add some cornflour (cornstarch) to help in binding. In place of cornflour you can add rice flour, bread crumbs, tapioca flour.

However if you want to make this paneer tikki for any Hindu fasting days then instead of cornflour use the flours that are used during the fasting period like arrowroot flour, buckwheat flour and amaranth flour. Also use edible rock salt instead of regular salt.

Paneer tikki is a popular Indian dish. The Indian tikki is same as the western patty that is used in burgers. It is just that the ingredients that are used are different.

You can also stuff these paneer patties inside the burger buns or bread slices and have them as a filling snack.

The spicing is minimal in this recipe. Feel free to add more ground spices like red chili powder, cumin powder, garam masala powder etc if you prefer. You can also add herbs like mint leaves and coriander leaves.

In North India, Aloo Tikki is a very popular street food snack. It is sometimes also served as a chaat, commonly known Aloo Tikki Chole.

Here the potato patties are served with street style Punjabi Chole and topped with curd, sweet chutney and green chutney. You can serve this paneer tikki also with a simple homestyle Chana Masala.

You could have any type of vegetarian tikki or patties with mint chutney or even with tomato ketchup and bread. It can be had as a breakfast, brunch or evening snack.

How to make Paneer Patties

Preparation

1. Rinse potatoes thoroughly in fresh water. Boil 4 medium to large-sized potatoes with some salt and water in a stovetop pressure cooker or the Instant Pot. You can also cook them in a pan.

To cook in the stovetop pressure cooker, add enough water to cover the potatoes. Add half a teaspoon of salt. Cover tightly with the pressure cooker lid.

Pressure cook for 4 to 5 whistles or 8 to 10 minutes on medium to medium-high heat.

2. Once the pressure inside the cooker drops naturally then only open the lid. Check the potatoes with a fork or knife.

The fork or knife should pass easily through the potatoes. If not then pressure cook for some more time.

Remove the potatoes with tongs or a slotted spoon draining any water. Place them in a mixing bowl.

Allow the potatoes to become warm or cool and then peel them.

3. Then mash the potatoes using a potato masher or with a fork.

Make Patties Mixture

4. Crumble finely 125 grams paneer (cottage cheese) and add it to the mashed potatoes. You can also grate the paneer.

5. Add ½ teaspoon black pepper powder or crushed pepper, 1 tablespoon cornflour and salt as required.

6. Mix all the ingredients very well. There should be no lumps. The paneer patty mixture should be smooth. 

If the mixture is slightly loose, then add some more cornflour. Cornflour binds the tikki mixture.

So when you fry the tikki in oil, they do not crumble or fall apart. check the taste and add more seasonings of pepper and salt, if required.

7. Now take some portion of the mixture in your hands. Shape them into balls and then flatten them. Make even sized tikki of the entire mixture.

Make Paneer Tikki

8. Heat a well-seasoned skillet or tava. Once the skillet becomes hot add 2 to 3 tablespoons ghee or oil.

Spread the ghee or oil all over the skillet with a spoon. Keep the heat to medium to medium-low.

I have used a cast-iron skillet to fry these paneer patties.

9. Place the tikki on the skillet on medium to medium-low heat.

10. Pan fry the bottom side till it turns golden brown. Then turn over each tikki and fry the second side till it becomes golden. Add more oil if needed while pan-frying.

Depending on the size of the skillet you can fry them all at once or in batches.

11. You can even shallow fry or deep fry. If deep or shallow frying the paneer patties, then use oil and not ghee. If you are using a nonstick tava, then you can use ghee or butter.

12. When browned and crisp from both sides, remove them from the skillet. Place the fried tikki on absorbent napkins to absorb excess oil if any.

You can also place them in a mesh strainer to keep the crispiness intact.

Serve paneer patties with tomato ketchup or green coriander chutney or mint chutney.

You can also serve them with some yogurt or curd that has been sweetened with sugar.

These paneer tikki also pair nicely with tamarind chutney. They can be stuffed between burger buns or bread slices with your favorite toppings.

Expert Tips

• Adding salt when boiling the potatoes, make sure that the salt seeps into the potatoes.
• The potatoes have to be really boiled well. To check if they are boiled properly, insert a fork or a knife in a potato. If the fork passes smoothly, it shows that the potato are cooked. If not, then you may need to boil for some more time.
• For easy mashing, grate the potatoes. When you grate the potatoes, it becomes easier to mash them. You could also use a potato masher or a fork.
• For binding, I have used cornflour. But one can also use soaked bread, maida (all purpose flour), buckwheat flour (kuttu ka atta) or even water-chestnut flour (singhare ka atta).
• If you have leftover boiled potatoes, you can use them.
• If you prefer add herbs like coriander leaves or mint leaves or ginger to the patty mixture.
• If you are looking for more Paneer recipes Then do check
• Paneer tikka
• Paneer 65
• Paneer pakoda
• Paneer Cutlet

Paneer Patties recipe from the blog archives was first published on February 2010.