Delicious Vegan Palak Tofu in Instant Pot in just 20 minutes. Lightly fried tofu added to spinach cooked in a onion, tomato sauce with spices. This is a dairy-free and gluten-free recipe. You can try this same curry with sweet corn in place of tofu, which is a great variation to this recipe. I made this recipe with spinach, but you can also vary by adding half spinach and half mustard greens to make saag tofu.
I made Palak Paneer some time back, but felt that I want to have a recipe for my vegan friends. So I made Palak Tofu this time. Guess what, my husband did not even realize that it is tofu, and not paneer. I know being vegan you don’t miss paneer in any way, but I was pretty impressed with they being so similar in taste.
I love these one-pot recipes which can be prepared in minutes, rather than hours. It takes less than 30 minutes from start to end of this recipe, so it is absolutely one on my list for quick weekday dinners.
I have a variety of Saag recipes in case you want to try variations – Saag Aloo & Saag Paneer with mustard greens. Replace paneer with tofu to make the recipe vegan.
How to make Palak Tofu in Instant Pot?
Start with removing moisture from the tofu and cutting it into cubes. Lightly fry it in a sauce pan.
While the tofu is frying, start the instant pot and heat oil in it. Add the cumin seeds, ginger, garlic and whole red chili. When the garlic turns golden, add chopped onions. Saute them for about 3 minutes until they are lightly browned, then add chopped tomato and spices.
Add in the spinach and change the instant pot setting to manual mode for 2 minutes with vent closed. When the instant pot beeps, let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes, then release the pressure manually. Use an immersion blender to blend the spinach to a creamy texture. Then add in the fried tofu.
Spinach Tofu curry is ready to be enjoyed with your favorite bread, such as naan, roti or paratha. Don’t forget to let me know how you like it.
Vegan Palak Saag Tofu - Instant Pot Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 1 lb Spinach (Palak) washed
- 2 cups Tofu Firm
- 1 tbsp Oil
- 1 tsp Cumin seeds (Jeera)
- 1 Onion medium, chopped
- 1 Tomato medium, chopped
- 2 Dried Red Chili Whole (optional)
- 5 cloves Garlic
- 1" inch Ginger
- 2 tbsp Oil for frying Tofu
- 1/4 cup Water
- 1 tsp Garam masala (adjust to taste)
Spices
- 1/2 tsp Ground Turmeric (Haldi powder)
- 1/2 tsp Cayenne or Red chili powder (optional)
- 1 tsp Coriander powder (Dhaniya powder)
- 1 tsp Salt
Instructions
Preparing Tofu
- Lightly press the tofu and remove excess water. Cut it in to small cubes.
- Add 2 tbsp oil in a sauce pan and lightly fry the tofu. Turn the tofu, so it browns evenly. This will take about 5 minutes. Take out of sauce pan and keep the tofu aside.
Preparing Spinach
- Start the instant pot in sauté mode. Heat 1 tbsp oil and add cumin seeds. (You can do this in parallel while tofu is frying)
- When cumin seeds start to splutter, add ginger, garlic, red chili and onions. Sauté for about 2 minutes until onion is lightly browned.
- Stir in the tomato, spices and saute for another 2 minutes.
- Add water and deglaze the pot. Add in the spinach. Press cancel and close the instant pot lid with vent in sealing position. Set on manual or pressure cook mode for 2 minutes.
- Once the instant pot beeps, let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes, then manually release the pressure.
- Blend the spinach and other ingredients in the pot to a creamy texture using an immersion blender.
- Add the tofu and let it rest for 5 minutes, so it soaks in the flavors of the curry.
- Garnish with coconut or cashew cream if desired. Palak Tofu can be served with naan, roti or paratha.
Notes
- Stovetop Variation: The exact same preparation can be done in a sauce pan. Do not use a non-stick pan, if you plan to use an immersion blender to puree the spinach.
Note: Nutrition values are my best estimates. If you rely on them for your diet, use your preferred nutrition calculator.
Nutrition
Check out other Instant Pot Curries you might enjoy:
Great recipe. Can I add potatoes? Will the pressure cooking time change?
Hi Lokesh – I have shared the recipe for Saag Aloo here. Hope you enjoy it!
Hi, thank you for this recipe. I want to try it tonight but I don’t have cumin seeds. Is there anything I can use as a replacement?
Hi Yassena – You can skip the cumin seeds, and follow the recipe. Hope you enjoy it!
I have a few dumb questions! Is the pressure level low or high? When you blend the mixture, do you remove the dried red chilies? Thanks!
Hi Lopa – I do blend the dry red chilies along. However it is completely optional. You can skip the chilies or remove them before blending. I do high pressure for this recipe. Thanks!
Trying it today let’s how it turns out
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Hey Emma – That is a great variation to add mushrooms. Thanks for sharing back with your review!
This is fantastic! I had a few raw button mushroom from another dish that I needed to use up, so I added them at the same time as the spinach! Otherwise wise I followed the recipe exactly. I transferred the sauce when done to my food processor, it came out silky and delicious! Thank you for this amazing recipe!
It was so, so good! I used a thawed block of frozen spinach. Another amazing recipe.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the Palak Tofu 🙂
Does this recipe need water? I see your IP Palak Paneer has 1/4 cup water but this has none.
Thank you for all these IP versions of your recipes! I’ve made Indian food for years as my hubby is Indian and we used to live in India as well,but I’ve always been too afraid to use a traditional pressure cooker!
Hey Tara – Glad you are enjoying the Indian recipes on the blog! Usually with spinach, my pot comes to pressure even without adding any water. However feel free to add 1/4 cup water, it will still turn out great 🙂 I hope you enjoy it!
Excellent – this sauce is a good carrier for anything. Going to make it and portion size it for the freezer.
Hello Jean, this is certainly a perfect one to freeze. Thank you for sharing your review!
Another good sauce to freeze is from the paneer butter masala recipe. I use that similar to this one, add any veggies of liking 🙂
Love this recipe! Can’t wait to try some of your others. I followed this exactly except that I used frozen spinach that I thawed for a few hours on the counter. This was all I had around and I almost never keep fresh spinach because it always seems to end up in the trash. It came out excellent with the frozen spinach. My husband I really enjoyed this, I couldn’t even tell it was tofu subbed in for the paneer. It will become a regular recipe in our rotation. Thanks again!
Hey Puja – Glad to hear you and your husband enjoyed the Palak Tofu. Thank you for sharing that this worked well with frozen spinach, it will definitely help other readers 🙂