Calories in Palak Paneer

The recipe behind this figure is a home-style one. A single bowl holds 150 g of spinach, 50 g of tomato, 25 g of onion and 40 g of paneer, cooked in 1 1/2 teaspoons of oil. That is a full bowl of thick green gravy with a modest amount of paneer in it. A katori at home may hold less gravy, while a restaurant bowl usually holds more paneer, and both change the number. Restaurants also finish the dish with cream or butter, which this recipe leaves out, so 230 kcal should be read as the figure for a plain, home-cooked bowl.

Fat supplies 56% of the energy, protein 21% and carbohydrate 23%. Unlike a plain sabzi, the fat here has two sources, the paneer and the cooking oil, and the paneer's share is why part of the 14.1 g is saturated. The paneer also supplies most of the 11.9 g of protein, and calcium with it. The spinach adds very little energy but much of the bowl's 5.6 g of fibre. Aloo palak, the same greens with potato in place of paneer, is 192 kcal with 5.5 g of protein.

One bowl of palak paneer is about 11% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 14% of a woman's. Two bowls come to 460 kcal with 23.8 g of protein, which makes palak paneer one of the few sabzis that can stand in for dal as the protein of a vegetarian meal. It is low in starch, 13.1 g of carbohydrate a bowl, so it pairs naturally with roti or rice. With 5.6 g of fibre as well, a bowl with roti and a salad is a fairly complete plate.

Palak paneer is often eaten for its iron and calcium. The iron, and part of the calcium, come from spinach, from which the body absorbs only a fraction; the paneer is the steadier source of calcium. Its fat is partly the saturated fat of paneer, and the gravy is salted to taste. Anyone on a salt or fat restriction for blood pressure or a heart condition, or advised to limit spinach because of kidney stones, should follow their doctor or dietitian.