Paneer Arepa

Published in

Indian Gastronomy

5 min readMay 9, 2017

Arepa is a very prominent dish in the cuisine of Colombia and Venezuela. Its made of ground maize dough or cooked flour. Its a staple food in those countries and often accompanied by cheese, avocado or split to make sandwiches. Like every other dish we make we have an Indian twist to this. We are replacing cheese with staple Indian cottage cheese- Paneer. We call it paneer bhurji arepa. Bhurji means minced. So we are going to make these awesome arepas and split them to put some juicy paneer bhurji in between. So lets get into the process of making these-

Watch the video for step by step process:

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Serves: 4

What You’ll Need

2 cups arepa flour (precooked cornmeal) — I used P.A.N and that’s what the entire South America uses- no kidding.

2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

water — 2½ cups

onions — 1/2cup

tomatoes — 1/4 cup

salt — to taste

ginger garlic and green chilli paste — 1/2 teaspoon

turmeric — 1/4 teaspoon

cumin, coriander, garam masala powder-1/4 teaspoon each

Grated carrots — 1/4 cup

Grated paneer — 1/2 cup

How We Did It

First lets start by making arepa’s. Combine the arepa flour and salt in a medium bowl and add 2½ cups warm water in the center. Slowly mix the dry and wet ingredients till you see no lumps. You should let it hydrate for 5 minutes and knead the dough few times. Divide the dough into 6 parts and flatten them into ½” thick arepas.

2. Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add arepa, cover, and cook until golden brown, 6–8 minutes. Uncover, flip, and cook (keep uncovered) until other side is golden brown, 6–8 minutes. Transfer arepas to a wire rack. Repeat with remaining 1 Tbsp. oil and dough.

3. Now that your arepas are done. Lets start making the paneer bhurji. In the same skillet add some oil turmeric, cumin coriander powder, red chilli powder and salt, ginger garlic and green chilli paste, green peas, onions. Now let it roast till onions turn translucent.

4. Once they turn translucent add tomatoes, garam masala and let this cook for 5 more minutes.

5. Now is the time to add grated paneer. Paneer is Indian cottage cheese, you should get this in any Indian store. If that store doesn’t carry paneer then its safe to say they should stop calling it an Indian store. So yes you should get this easily.

6. Mix it all up and close the skillet so the steam will cook it and mash everything together. At this point taste it and add some more salt if required.