Takeaway Style Vegan Paneer Tikka Masala

Bethany's Vegan Kitchen

Apr 1

A creamy tikka masala sauce, with firm tofu "paneer", great for a fakeaway with rice and naan bread to scoop up the sauce. Using tofu in place of paneer adds extra protein, iron and calcium to this curry. As for the cream, I used tofu cream, which I made by blending 60ml plant cream with 80g of firm tofu. However, you can use any other plant based cream instead of this if you prefer

Yield; Four servings Cook time; 30 minutes

You'll need;

One tablespoon of oil
Two small brown onions, peeled and sliced
Three cloves of garlic, sliced
A thumb size piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
Three tablespoons of tomato puree
Three tablespoons of tikka masala curry powder
One 400g tin of plum tomatoes
140ml plant based cream
400g firm tofu, pressed and diced
Two tablespoons of desiccated coconut

Optional Extra; To give this the same appearance as a takeaway tikka masala, I also added red food colouring. This won't change the flavour, just the appearance, so it isn't strictly necessary

Method;

Heat the oil in a saucepan over a medium heat, once it's warmed up add in the onions and give them five minutes to soften
Once the onions have softened, add in the garlic and ginger. Give them a couple of minutes to become fragrant then add in the tomato puree and curry powder
Give the tomato puree and curry powder a couple of minutes to cook off, then add the tin of plum tomatoes. Season to taste with salt and black pepper
Pop a lid on the saucepan and leave the sauce to simmer for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. After ten minutes take the sauce off the heat and blend it until it's completely smooth
Put the sauce back on the heat and add the cream, food colouring, chopped tofu and coconut. If you're not using any food colouring it will look like this
Give the sauce a few minutes to heat back up, then it's ready to serve. I'd definitely recommend serving this with rice and naan bread, roti or chapatti to scoop up the sauce with