Make This Viral Marry Me Sauce With Paneer
A delicious vegetarian adaptation to the traditional Marry Me Chicken recipe using paneer! This is creamy, tangy and spicy Indian fusion recipe.
Nut-free
30 mins
Egg-free
When the food tastes so good and you’re filled with complete appreciation for the one who made it, sometimes you can’t help but blurt out “I want to marry you for this!”
This is exactly what happened with this viral Marry Me recipe.
This Marry Me Paneer recipe is an Indian fusion adaptation to the viral Marry Me Chicken recipe. It is made with caramelized onions and sun-dried tomatoes. It’s an emulsion of creamy, tangy and sweet flavours. The gorgeous sauce coats the pillowy soft paneer that has been pan-fried to crispy golden, and this dish is finished with some zesty parsley. If this description doesn’t give you a good enough reason to try it, I don’t know what will!
Why Marry Me?
Thanks to Lindsay Funston, an editor at Delish, her Marry Me Chicken recipe went viral with countless adaptations. It became so popular that The New York Times covered the phenomenon! I decided to make the Indian-style vegetarian version of this using paneer and a few other tweaks to perfect the flavours a little.
During the photoshoot for Funston’s recipe, the videographer had a taste of the dish and she immediately responded with ‘I’d marry you for this chicken!’. Subsequently, the name Marry Me Chicken was born!
A Little Marry Me Sauce History
It has long been debated that the way to anyone’s heart is through their stomach. Since the 80’s, the humorous myth that someone would marry you for a delicious roast made their rounds. In the early 2000’s, former fashion editor at Glamour magazine, Kim Bonnell, created a delicious roast chicken recipe. One of her colleagues decided to make it for her boyfriend. Much to Bonnell’s delight, the colleague came back to work with a proposal! The recipe’s magic made waves through the office and coincidently, several other people were engaged after making the same recipe! Glamour Magazine decided to publish the recipe and dub it ‘Engagement Chicken’, with a proven track record!
Not long after that, the ‘Engagement Chicken’ recipe was noticed by American cookbook author and television host Ina Garten. She took a spin on it and it became a sensation.
Linday Funston’s motive behind adapting recipes like Bonnell’s and Garten’s was never to get people married, but to ‘get people on their feet and cook in their own kitchens’. This recipe may not guarantee marriage, but it can certainly make you fall in love.
What Makes Marry Me Sauce So Special?
What makes this dish so special is the combination of the thyme, sun-dried tomatoes and cream. Using heavy cream may be a little too much for some people, but you can certainly use coconut cream or soya cream. These replacements will help make this recipe slightl lighter and sweeter.
The Variations For This Marry Me Sauce
I love Indian fusion recipes and I also like creative adaptations with Indian ingredients. I grew up enjoying and appreciating all the flavours Indian food can bestow on your plate, so elevating (and veganising) traditional recipes is my forte.
You can absolutely make this vegan by:
- Using mushrooms or any other veggies you like to replace the paneer
- Use coconut cream or soya cream instead of double cream to get that delicious light creamy finish
- Adding pasta or orzo to this for a more fuller meal.
If you don’t have access to paneer, you can use my recipe here to learn how to make it at home! It’s a lot more easier than you think, and nothing beats fresh homemade paneer!
Marry Me Paneer
A delicious vegetarian adaptation to the traditional Marry Me Chicken recipe using paneer! This is creamy, tangy and spicy Indian fusion recipe.
Ingredients
- 1.5 tbsp olive oil
- 200 g paneer defrosted
- 70 g onions sliced
- 1/2 red chilli chopped
- 1 tbsp thyme dry
- 80 g sun-dried tomatoes chopped
- 4 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 cup double cream cooking cream will do
- 1/4 salt
- parsley for garnish
- red chilli flakes
Instructions
- Place the olive oil in a frying pan over medium to low heat
- Pan-fry the paneer on both sides, until crispy/golden brown, and take it off the pan. Keep it aside.
- In the same pan with the remaining oil, sauté the onions until translucent and caramalised. This means the onions need to fully release their sweetness.
- Add the garlic and chilli to the pan, and mix it altogether until fragrant.
- Sprinkle the thyme, and saute for a few seconds.
- Add the sun-dried tomatoes and sauté until fragrant.
- Pour in the cooking cream/double cream and gently mix it all in for a few minutes. The oils from the sun-dried tomatoes should slowly start to emulsify with the fat in the cream. Let this mixture reach a bubbling simmer.
- Now season this sauce with some salt and pepper.
- Once the cream has slightly thickened, and the colour of the mixture has turned into a beautiful shade of pink, add in your paneer.
- Gently coat the paneer with the sauce. Don't let it sit in the heat for too long. Once the paneer is fully coated, take the pan off the gas and plate it.
- Garnish your Marry Me Paneer with some parsley and chilli flakes. Serve warm.
