As easy and delicious vegetarian tray bake / sheet pan meal with teriyaki paneer and caramelized pineapple. It comes together easily in one pan with very few ingredients, just put it in the oven and let the magic happen! Pair with coconut rice for an incredibly tasty fusion dinner.
So what to we have here? A simple dinner! Yay! Very few ingredients. Not even a lot of chopping. One pan that you put in the oven and walk away from. It’s not fast, but it’s simple.
It’s for those days where it’s OK for dinner to take an hour, but you have minimal energy to put to the task. You know those days?
Like many of my recipes, I was inspired by another blogger’s meaty recipe which showed up on my Instagram. I decided this idea needed to be taken over to the veggie side and paneer was the way to go.
Asian Paneer Though?
Yes! While we typically think of paneer as an ingredient in curries, Indo Chinese cuisine introduced me to the idea of using it with Eastern Asian flavors (have you seen my chili paneer lettuce wraps?) and that is mighty tasty too.
Oven Roasting / Baking Paneer
For me, the ideal method for this dish is to just coat all the ingredients in sauce, toss them in a dish and oven roast it, a slower process but so effortless. Roasted paneer turns nicely brown with no oil spitting to contend with!
Roasted pineapple reduces and caramelizes in such a beautiful way, and the paneer gets to absorb lots of flavors from the sauce and the pineapple juices.
See that? The end result is deliciously juicy. Deliciously sweet. Just so good.
We have some green onions and chilis floating around in there too, and then we drizzle in some toasted sesame oil (if you have it, no worries if you don’t) and top it all off with green onion tops and coriander (cilantro) on top and life is pretty great.
But we’re flexible too – you can leave bits out, add bits in, it’s an easy template.
Ingredient Notes
See this little collection here? That’s all you need! And check me out, rocking the store brands because they’re plenty good enough.
Store bought paneer can vary from brand to brand. I’ve tried this with both Apetina (a drier, crumblier fresh paneer) and the Tesco store brand as pictured (a more firm, rubbery paneer). It works well with both types. I generally don’t recommend the Tesco paneer because it’s quite bland, but I found it suits this recipe just fine.
Canned pineapple is what I’ve used here, though I don’t see any reason not to use fresh. You want around 260g (9oz). In terms of quantities, I wouldn’t worry if you have a little less than that, but I wouldn’t go over the amount. The pineapple to paneer ratio in this recipe is fairly generous already.
I used one red chili in this, but this part is up to you. More chili, no chili, green chili, all of this is fine. (I used another one for a garnish, which is also optional.)
If you want to add extra veggies, feel free! Throw them in and just up the teriyaki sauce.
How to Serve
While this dish packs a lot of moisture and juicy goodness, it’s not super saucy. I would therefore suggest serving this with coconut rice for a little extra moisture factor. I give a recipe in the Recipe Card but there’s no reason not to use a pouch of ready made coconut rice. The Tilda brand is pretty great.
An alternative would be to toss it into some noodles, but you’ll want to add some extra teriyaki sauce and possibly thin the whole dish out with some veggie broth.
This recipe serves two – but you can double it!
The amount you see in these photos? That is the whole batch! I’ve made this recipe for two because in a normal casserole dish it cooks better with these quantities. See the Recipe Notes for tips on how to double it.
Pineapple Paneer Teriyaki Bake
Ingredients
- 200 g (7 oz) block of paneer, cubed
- 435 g (15 oz) can of pineapple chunks, drained*
- 5 green onions (spring onions), separated into white parts (sliced into 1 inch pieces) and the green parts (finely chopped)
- 6-8 Tbsp teriyaki sauce
- 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
Coconut Rice
- 185 g (1 cup) dried white basmati or jasmine rice
- 400 ml (14 oz) can of coconut milk
- 60 ml (¼ cup) of water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 210C (410F).
- If you can marinade your paneer for a while ahead of time, you should! Even if it’s just while you preheat the oven and prep everything else. Place it in a bowl, add around 4 tablespoons of the teriyaki sauce, and gently mix through to get every piece coated. Let it sit in the fridge for as long as you’ve got.
- When it’s time to roll, add the drained pineapple, sliced chili and the white bits of the green onion to the paneer and drizzle in another couple tablespoons of teriyaki sauce. Toss until everything is coated.
- Coat the bottom of a large roasting dish with oil. Pour the paneer and pineapple mixture to the pan and spread everything out to ensure there isn’t too much overlap of the paneer and pineapple pieces.
- Put in the top shelf of the oven for 40 minutes, but go in after about 20 minuteas to give everything a stir and flip it over. It’s ready when the paneer is browned and the pineapple is reduced.
- If you’re making the coconut rice from scratch, cook this while the paneer is in the oven. Just place all of the ingredients in a pan, bring to a boil and them simmer for 20-25 minutes until the rice is cooked through and the mositure is absorbed. Fluff with a fork and let it sit while you wait for the paneer to be ready.
- Once the paneer is ready, drizzle the toasted sesame oil and a little more teriyaki sauce into the pan and mix through with a spatula.
- Serve! Scoop rice into bowls and top with the pineapple paneer mixture, fresh coriander and the green onion tops.