I love slow cookers. Instead of monitoring a stove or an oven, a slow cooker can do all the work for you without supervision. If you find yourself busy on meal-prep Sunday, a slow cooker can make a large amount of delicious food while you are out and about. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can find a 6 quart model for $25! Don’t be fooled into getting a fancy $100+ one.

Spinach or Saag Paneer is an Indian dish that consists of paneer (firm ricotta) cheese in a spinach tomato sauce. I found the recipe over here: http://www.slenderkitchen.com/recipe/sunday-slow-cooker-saag-paneer

Normally Saag Paneer is very heavy with cream and full fat paneer. This recipe cuts the fat big time. If you want to make this dish vegan, feel free to use firm tofu like I did.

1. First gather all your ingredients

This includes:

• 4  (more like 8) minced garlic gloves
  
• 3 tablespoon of minced fresh ginger
• 1.5 cups of tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoons of garam masala
• 1 tablespoon of ground coriander
• 1 tablespoon of ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 1 14 ounce can of lite coconut milk
• 30 ounces of frozen spinach, thawed and drained
  
• 8 ounces fresh spinach
• 12 oz paneer (low fat) cheese or extra firm tofu
  

2. Mix in all the ingredients except both of the spinach and the tofu/paneer.

3. I really want to emphasize the need to drain the frozen spinach. Cut a little corner off the side then squeeze as much liquid as possible out. Make sure you do it over the sink because it is messy. Here is the bag of chopped spinach before squeezing.

After squeezing.

Mix in the frozen spinach and cook on low for 3 hours.

After three hours some liquid will rise to the top.

4. Mix in the raw spinach. Keep mixing until the heat of the slow cooker helps begin to wilt the spinach. Let it cook on low for 1 more hour.

5.If you are using tofu, you will need to press out the excess moisture. Cut the tofu along its shortest dimension in half so it forms two rectangular planks. Place a paper towel on a cutting board. Put the two tofu pieces on top. Then place a weight on top. I put some plates and bowls into a baking dish.

6. After an hour your spinach will look like this.

The original recipe said to either use an immersion blender directly in the crock pot or to batch blend the mixture in a blender to grind up the spinach. I forgot and it still tasted fine, but I think it would of help incorporate the flavors better. If you are using tofu, the moisture should of been pressed out by now. I also added some sriracha smoked tofu since I had some waiting to be used. Cut the tofu or paneer up into cubes.

Put the cubes into the spinach mixture and mix.

Cook for 1 more hour.

The below nutrition uses tofu and a 1/4 cup of brown rice (dry volume) per serving.

Nutrition Facts
Servings 6.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 369
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 8 g	13 %
Saturated Fat 3 g	16 %
Monounsaturated Fat 1 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 2 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 0 mg	0 %
Sodium 965 mg	40 %
Potassium 1096 mg	31 %
Total Carbohydrate 56 g	19 %
Dietary Fiber 7 g	27 %
Sugars 5 g
Protein 14 g	29 %
Vitamin A	99 %
Vitamin C	24 %
Calcium	30 %
Iron	28 %
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.