Is it pouring off the side of the plate? We’ll never know!

Nope. The sauce was store bought. But sustainably vegan has a tofu tikka masala recipe

I’ve made this recipe before and it’s fantastic - looks a little different than OP, but I’d still recommend it. https://www.cookingcarnival.com/instant-pot-tofu-tikka-masala/

I do a couple things differently, like I skip the sieve and am super thorough with the immersion blender instead. A couple dry red (arbol?) chiles from the Mexican foods section of the grocery store work well.

My dad and I are both omnivores (him being less adventurous than I) and I made this one time. When I told him what I was making, he joked about going to McDonald’s instead. He had 3 helpings.

I also have a friend from India. I’m sure it’s not authentic, but he really likes this one (to be fair, he says that about everything I make. I don’t think it’s out of pure politeness, but I try not to get too arrogant about it either 😉 )

If you’re worried about consistency, what I’d do is get extra firm tofu, press out as much fluid as I can, season it separately, and then fry it separately on a pan. Then just add the tofu in at the end to prevent it from crumbling while the curry cooks and thickens.

I’d say you don’t need to deep fry it, but you should try to crisp up the edges to help it all keep together. So pan fry or even baking would be fine if you don’t want to deep fry.

I dunno, Tofu is literally soy paneer made in the same way I feel like it is its most natural replacement lol

I buy the extra firm and press it for an hour to get as much moisture out as I can. Then toss it in some corn starch and make until it’s crispy.

Tofu/Paneer is usually added at the end of the cooking process exactly for the reason you described, not making it crumble. And instead of deep-frying, you can shallow fry the tofu cubes on a frying pan, just so the sides are browned. You could also air-fry the cubes instead to achieve similar browning. And since the tofu is already cooked after frying, you can add it at the end and give it a gentle stir to mix it in :)

I find medium firm tofu holds together better when cooking in sauces like this. It’s less brittle than firm tofu and has some give under pressure so it bends/squishes instead of crumbling.

It did spill. But I did clean it afterwards though