Paneer Pizza

On those sluggish weekend afternoons, it is a pain spending too much time in the kitchen when everyone else is lazing about, here is a great lunch idea…. pizza. My Husband and I are great fans of the “Indian Pizza” … “What is that?” You will ask. Well add some paneer (cottage cheese), Dhania (cilantro/ coriander leaves), Madras curry powder and lots of chillie powder and voila!

Okay! This is a lazy afternoon lunch, remember, so I have used store bought pizza base and tomato basil pasta sauce in this recipe. You are more than welcome to look up the recipe for making pizza base and pizza sauce on the internet. Make it a family project. Assign the chopping veggies work to someone ;) and the assembling work to someone else. I am sure they will enjoy themselves. This recipe serves 2.

Ingredients –

Pizza base – 1

Pasta Sauce/tomato ketchup – 2 tbsps

Shredded mozzarella cheese – 1 cup

Capsicum – 1

Red Onion – 1

Tomato – 1

Paneer (cubed) – 10 pieces

Coriander leaves (finely chopped) – a bunch

Red chillie flakes – 1 tbsp

Curry powder – 1 tsp

Mixed herbs – 1 tsp

Salt to taste

Method

Marinade -

• Deseed the capsicum and cut into cubes. Chop the onions and tomatoes into rough cubes. They can be chunky if you like.
• Put the cut veggies and the paneer into a bowl and add some salt, curry powder and half a teaspoon of chillie flakes. Mix thoroughly and refrigerate for an hour.

Assemble -

• Spread a dollop of the pasta sauce as evenly as possible on the pizza base.  
• Spread the marinade on the base and top it with the grated cheese.
• Now top this with the coriander leaves, the remainder of the red chillie flakes and the mixed herbs.

Bake

• Preheat the oven to 400 deg F and bake the pizza for 20 minutes or until it is done.

Variations –

8” pizza generally serves one. Try the whole wheat base if you can find it in the market.

You can add other veggies like yellow corn kernels, baby corn, red and yellow bell pepper, etc. to this.

You can top the pizza with fresh basil leaves besides the coriander leaves.

I tried making this pizza with Alfredo sauce instead of the tomato and basil sauce and that was pretty tasty as well.

If you can’t find mixed herbs, oregano would do just as well.