Saag Paneer is the authentic North Indian favorite. It is made with cooking mustard leaves and spinach with spices and cottage cheese, which makes it a delicious and nutritious dish. Make it in the instant pot for a quick and easy one-pot recipe.
“Sarson ka saag te makki di roti“, which means mustard saag with bread made from corn meal, is what my Punjabi family loves for a scrumptious weekend meal. This is a very common meal made in villages in Punjab.
Mustard leaves have a a very interesting taste, they are slightly bitter but still very pleasing to the palate. See picutre below. That is one of the main reasons to cook them with spinach. I like to prepare saag with both mustard leaves and spinach, it gives the more authentic taste. If you don’t have mustard leaves at hand, you can prepare it with only spinach as well. But I warn you, it tastes so much better with mustard leaves.
Saag is such a favorite. I have a variety of Saag recipes in case you want to try variations – Saag Aloo, Palak Tofu, Palak Paneer and Saag Chicken.
You can eat saag as is, without any additions to it. In this recipe, I have added paneer to the saag as my daughter loves it. To make it vegan, you can skip the paneer or replace it with tofu.
Some people add radishes and/or broccoli while preparing saag, which is great too. You can also add cauliflower. It helps to get a thicker texture. Radishes help to reduce the bitter taste and balance the flavor. I like to add broccoli when I am making plain saag without paneer. Broccoli/Cauliflower can be added in addition to the greens. Add them before the pressure cooking step.
How to make Saag Paneer in Instant Pot?
This is a very quick, one-pot recipe. Start the instant pot and add in the ghee, green chili, ginger and garlic. Then add in the chopped onions and sauté for a few minutes. The ingredients can be cut into large pieces as we are going to blend them later.
Then add in the mustard, spinach leaves, water and pressure cook for 4 minutes. Release the pressure naturally for 5 minutes, then do a quick release. Add in the corn meal (makai ka aata) and use the immersion blender to grind it to a smooth paste. You can also use a normal blender to grind and then transfer the saag back to the instant pot.
Add in the paneer and cook it for a few minutes. Saag Paneer is ready to be served.
Serve saag paneer with makki ki roti or naan. Add in a dollop of ghee or butter and enjoy!
You might also like these North Indian curry recipes made in the Instant Pot:
Instant Pot Saag Paneer
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon Ghee or Oil
- 1/4 teaspoon Cumin seeds (Jeera)
- 2 Green Chili Pepper, optional, adjust to taste*
- 1″ inch Ginger, chopped
- 10 cloves Garlic, chopped
- 2 Onion, medium sized. Cut into large pieces
- 1 bunch Mustard leaves (Sarson), chopped. About 8oz
- 1 bunch Spinach (Palak), chopped. About 8oz
- 1/4 cup Water
- 10 ounces Paneer or Cottage cheese, cut into small pieces
- 2 tablespoon Corn meal (Makai ka aata), fine ground
Spices
- 1/2 teaspoon Ground Turmeric (Haldi powder)
- 1/2 teaspoon Cayenne or Red Chili powder
- 2 teaspoon Coriander powder (Dhaniya powder)
- 1 teaspoon Salt
Instructions
- Heat ghee in the instant pot in saute mode. Add jeera, green chili, ginger and garlic.
- Once the ginger and garlic turns golden brown, add the chopped onions. Saute for 3 minutes.
- Add the spices to the instant pot. Then add the mustard greens, spinach and water.
- Change the instant pot setting to manual or pressure cook mode for 4 minutes. When the instant pot beeps, do a 5 minute NPR, which means release the pressure manually after 5 mins. Turn off the instant pot.
- Add in the corn flour. Use an immersion blender to blend the saag to a smooth paste.
- Turn on the instant pot in saute mode. Add in the paneer and cook for about 3 minutes.
- Saag Paneer is ready to be served.
Outstanding recipe. I used spinach and kale since that is what I had on hand. Also realized at the last minute that I was out of cayenne pepper so I subbed crushed red pepper. Added a splash of heavy cream while blending simply because I prefer it that way.
Even with my substitutions it was excellent.
Hi Tammie – Glad to gear you enjoyed the Saag.
I made this last weekend and it was delicious. I followed the recipe exactly. This is now my go-to recipe for Saag paneer. Mustard greens are naturally a bitter green but I didn’t find the dish bitter at all. When I was choosing the greens at the Indian market, I was careful to choose ones that looked “younger” and had not started to flower. I believe this is the key to minimizing bitterness. I am really enjoying this blog. I’ve already put your tadka daal, saag paneer, and veg biryani on my regular dinner rotation. Thanks Meeta and please keep them coming!!
Hi Michelle – So glad to hear you are enjoying the recipes. Thank you for sharing back your experience with the saag and tips on buying mustard greens.
Question about making this with broccoli or cauliflower instead of the mustard—are they are they simply replacing the mustard at the beginning of the cooking time, or done separately an added during the purée process? How much should be used?
Hi Jeff – I guess my note about adding broccoli or cauliflower is confusing. They can be added in addition to the mustard greens. Some type of greens such as mustard and/or spinach are essential to make saag. They can be added along with the greens to be pressure cooked. I will clarify in the recipe post as well.
YUM. Just made this and it’s super delicious. Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe.
I had extra spinach so did 1.5 X the recipe and used 2 parts spinach to 1 part mustard greens. Didn’t notice any bitterness. Really tasty.
Also, I recommend to anyone else making this to definitely use only fresh greens and to not go overboard with the hand mixer to leave it a nice texture. I’ve made saag recipes in the past with frozen spinach and they never turned out anywhere near this good. This was one of the best saag dishes I recall eating anywhere, in a long time.
The two green chiles hit a nice sweet spot of heat. Also, I added a bit more water than called for in the recipe and it came out a good consistency. I would do the same again.
Hi Andy – So happy to hear you enjoyed the Saag. Thank you for sharing the changes you made, it will be very helpful to other readers.
PS. I also added a little bit of brown sugar (jaggary would be best) to temper the bitterness.
Hello – Thank you for your honest feedback. Mustard greens are in general a bit bitter, especially compared to spinach. In India, we add 3 types of greens to saag – mustard, spinach and bathua. However we have not found the later in US grocery stores till now, so I use only mustard greens and spinach in this recipe. You can also try with a 1:3 ratio of mustard greens to spinach to reduce the bitterness. You can definitely blanch the greens in an open pot, which is the traditional way of doing it. Then blend and mix them with the sautéed onion, ginger, garlic and spices. This recipe is a one-pot easy way to make saag. I hope you try it again!
I really like this recipe, but it was pretty bitter. I read one place that, surprisingly, spinach makes the saag bitter. I am not sure if that makes sense. I more recently read in NDTV food some tips for making the “perfect saag.” They explained that is necessary to cook greens with the lid off since volatile acids need to escape as gas (or the greens will be bitter and lose their color). I think I will play around with boiling the greens ahead of time and then rinsing them. We’ll see if in the end all the time-saving benefits of the instant pot hold up. Otherwise, I may just live with the bitterness.
I have tried it once but it turned out pretty bitter. How can I avoid that ? Do we use the flowers of mustard ? What may I be doing wrong ?
Hey Roma – I don’t add any yellow flowers, but the green (broccoli like) ones are good to add. You can reduce the amount of mustard greens if it feels bitter, and add more spinach. Would love to hear if you try again!
Do you know how to cook in an Instant Pot with chana instead of with paneer? Thanks!
Hello Ben – You will need pre-cooked or canned chana. Here is how I cook chickpeas in the instant pot – https://pipingpotcurry.com/chickpeas-pressure-cooker/. After blending the saag, then add the cooked chickpeas and give it a quick boil on saute mode. Hope you enjoy it!
Hi! I’m interested to try this recipe but isn’t using ghee non vegan? What would you suggest to replace it for a vegan version? Thanks
Hey Sarah – You can replace ghee with any vegan oil of your choice. I have made this with canola or coconut oil too. Skip the paneer for a vegan version. You can add lightly sautéed tofu if you like. Hope you enjoy it!
Hi Meeta, I’m super excited to try this recipe tomorrow! Have you made it using frozen chopped vegetables (ie. spinach and kale) and if so, how would the cooking time or amount of water change based on using frozen versus fresh? Thanks so much!
Hey Maala – Glad that you are planning to try the Saag. I have not tried, but have seen many people use frozen spinach in saag, so give it a try. I would keep the water amount same, we are not adding much already. Would love to hear how it turns out. Thank you!