Paneer Tikka Recipe
One of my most favorite meals in the world is restaurant-style paneer tikka. It’s a recipe that gives you restaurant-style or street-style flavors at home with minimal effort.
What is Paneer Tikka?

Juicy chunks of paneer marinated in a punchy hot and sour tandoori masala are skewered up with onion petals and a piece of pepper.
The loaded skewers are then grilled on a wire rack directly over the cooker to infuse deep, smoky flavors into the paneer and vegetables.
The ghee and oil combo in the marinade ensures the outside becomes freckled with familiar scorch marks you’d expect from a restaurant or street-style tandoori dish.
A few tips before you make Restaurant-Style Paneer Tikka
1. Marinate
Marinate the paneer, peppers, and onions for a minimum of 30 minutes to give the ingredients time to get acquainted.
If you have time, you can pop the paneer and veg in the tandoori marinade the night before. Be sure to keep it covered in the fridge.
2. Soak the paneer
Being a paneer fangirl, you’ll know I’m always going on about soaking shop-bought paneer for a fresh, homemade texture and taste.
The basic idea is to rehydrate the paneer in boiling water to soften it up and give it a brilliant-white color that’s just like homemade.
3. Crack a window open
Open all the windows in your house for good ventilation. The cooking process will create smoke, which will need to escape.
If you have an extractor fan, switch it on. It will make your house smell like a restaurant kitchen.
4. Consider these alternative cooking options
If you don’t fancy cooking this over a flame, you can also place the skewers on a wire rack and cook them in an oven.
Make sure it’s very hot.
Traditional tandoors average 400°C heat, so it needs to be hot! You can also place these on a griddle pan or on the barbecue.
5. Choose the right kind of skewers
I used flat metal skewers, but you can also use bamboo skewers.
Be sure to soak them in cold water for an hour before you use them.
This will stop them burning during the cooking process.
Ingredients
For Paneer Tikka
- 500g paneer
- 2 large red onions
- 2 peppers (bell pepper/capsicum)
- 150g thick plain yoghurt
- 2 tbsp roasted gram flour
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tsp minced ginger
- 2 tbsp Kashmiri chilli powder
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp. ground coriander
- 1 tablespoon ground fennel seeds
- 2 tsp. ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 6 green cardamom pods, seeds finely grounded
- 2 tsp kasoori methi, ground or rubbed between your palms.
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
- 100ml edible mustard oil (or any vegetable oil of your choice; do not use olive oil)
Instructions
- Cut the paneer into cubes, about 1.5 cm x 2.5 cm. Soak the cubes in a bowl of boiling hot water (skip the step if using homemade paneer) whilst you make prepare the rest of the vegetables for the tikka and make the marinate.
- Core and de-seed the peppers and cut them into pieces, about the same size as the paneer.
- Peel the onions and slice them into quarters, or roughly the same size as the peppers and paneer. Peel the layers of the onions apart to separate into ‘petals’.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the yoghurt, roasted gram flour, Kashmiri chilli powder, cumin, coriander, fennel, black pepper, smoked paprika, cardamom, turmeric, kasoori methi, salt, lemon juice, garlic, and ginger. Whisk well. Heat the mustard oil in a small saucepan until smoking hot. Carefully pour the hot oil over the yoghurt mixture. Whisk again until smooth.
- Add the paneer, peppers and onions to the prepared marinade and toss well to coat.
- Skewer the paneer and vegetables onto oven-safe kebab skewers. Alternate the ingredients according to your preference.
- Set the skewers over an oven tray, resting the exposed bottom and top of the skewers on the lip of the tray so the ingredients are suspended and not touching the tray. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 220°C/425°F fan for 15-18 minutes. Keep an eye on them to ensure they do not burn.
- You can finish by scorching the kebabs over an open flame, or under the grill. This will give the tikka a restaurant-like flavor, as if they have been cooked in a tandoor (clay oven).
- Serve hot with naan and mint yogurt or green coriander chutney.