Green and good for you: 7 Tasty recipes made with nutrient-rich baby spinach
07/09/2020 / By Rose Lidell / Comments
Green and good for you: 7 Tasty recipes made with nutrient-rich baby spinach

Baby spinach is a versatile vegetable. Whether you’re in the mood for a green smoothie, a salad or even a muffin, you can use baby spinach to whip up your desired treat. Detailed below are seven amazing recipes you can try if you want to serve something tasty and full of leafy greens like baby spinach.

What is baby spinach?

Everyone knows that spinach is, from Popeye’s favorite food, to health buffs’ favorite green smoothie ingredient. But what’s the difference between “regular” spinach and baby spinach?

Spinach is rich in vitamins and minerals like iron and vitamins A and C. There are three varieties of spinach:

  1. Flat-leaf spinach, the most popular type of spinach in the United States. It has smooth, spade-shaped leaves with a tender texture and slightly sweet flavor. Best consumed raw, flat-leaf spinach can be bought loose or pre-washed and packaged. Baby spinach is a type of flat-leaf spinach that has been picked in the early stages of growth, with leaves that are much smaller, tender and sweet-tasting.
  2. Savoy spinach or curly leaf spinach has crinkly, curly leaves. This type of spinach is very dark green, with a crisp texture and a slightly bitter flavor. Unlike flat-leaf spinach, savoy spinach is best used for cooking.
  3. Semi-savoy spinach has semi-crinkly leaves with a similar crisp texture like savoy spinach. This type of spinach is also best served after being cooked.

Dark green baby spinach leaves are healing foods and a must-have in your kitchen if you want to start eating healthier. This superfood can be served in various dishes, from salads, soups, to stews and stir-fries! Baby spinach cooks quickly and doesn’t require any prep.

Baby spinach is low-calorie and it contains fiber, antioxidants and various vitamins and minerals.

Green smoothie with spinach, almond butter and dates

Green smoothies are a great way to boost your nutrient intake efficiently. And if you think a smoothie with baby spinach is gross, you can relax because you’ll barely taste the leafy greens in your drink.

The recipe below is from Alexandra Stafford, a blogger and the author of “Bread Toast Crumbs.”

Stafford notes that her green smoothie recipe is “quenching and restorative.” Naturally sweetened with a date and a banana, this green smoothie is also creamy because it contains almond butter and hemp seeds.

For green smoothie newbies, this recipe might help change your mind about drinking your greens.

You can even tweak the recipe to make it even healthier! Stafford suggests replacing half the banana for a half cup of frozen cauliflower and using chia seeds instead of hemp seeds. Alternatively, you can use non-dairy milk for a vegan smoothie.

Ingredients for 1 smoothie:

  • 1 cup unsweetened almond milk or milk of choice, add more as needed
  • 2–4 oz of baby spinach
  • 1 banana, sliced and frozen
  • 1 Medjool date, pitted and torn into pieces
  • A handful of ice
  • 1 tablespoon almond butter or other nut butter
  • 1 tablespoon chia seeds (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon hemp seeds (optional)
  • A pinch sea salt

Preparation:

  1. Place all ingredients in a blender. Process until smooth. If your blender gets stuck, stop it. Use a clean knife to mix the ingredients, then puree the mixture again.
  2. If you think the smoothie is too thick, add water or more milk until you reach the desired consistency.

Sauteed mushrooms and spinach with spicy garlic sauce

For a heartier dish, try this recipe from blogger Kelly Senyei.

Senyei notes that while spinach often shrinks and tastes bland after being sauteed, her recipe uses ingredients like garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce and scallions that will give your dish a flavor boost.

Adding shiitake mushrooms makes the dish more filling than a salad. The sweet and garlicky sauce pairs well with the baby spinach and the mushrooms while crushed red pepper flakes give the rest of the ingredients a spicy kick.

Serve the sauteed spinach and mushrooms with beef, pork, poultry or seafood. You can also serve the saute over rice if you want a meat-free dish.

Chicken and spinach stir-fry with ginger and oyster sauce

Katie Workman, author of “Dinner Solved: 100 Ingenious Recipes that Make the Whole Family Happy, Including You” prefers cooking with baby spinach because it’s convenient. She notes that since it’s very tender, it doesn’t need to be chopped and you can simply add it to stir-fries.

Workman, who also runs a blog, shared that it’s best not to add all the spinach in the pan because it will overflow. She suggests adding it in batches so it can wilt faster.

Set aside leftover leaves so you can whip up a quick salad.

Garlic and spinach pasta

Abra Berens, the author of “Ruffage: A Practical Guide to Vegetables,” offers her recipe for delicious garlic and spinach pasta.

If the butter, creamy sauce and pasta seem a bit of a guilty pleasure, you can rest easy since the dish also includes fresh baby spinach leaves. Other greens might be tough unless cooked over direct heat, but baby spinach leaves become tender and wilt because of the heat of the pasta.

Berens’ recipe uses a lot of garlic, but you can tweak the recipe if you don’t want something too garlicky. Make sure you use anchovy butter to give your dish a “briny lightness,” added Berens.

Skillet eggs with spinach and roasted cauliflower

Serena Wolf, a blogger and the author of “The Dude Diet Dinnertime: 125 Clean(ish) Recipes for Weeknight Winners and Fancypants Dinners,” offers an easy, savory recipe that combines five nutritious ingredients like eggs, tomato sauce, cauliflower and greens.

Serve this dish if you have kids who are still in that “Ew, spinach!” phase to sneak in some leafy greens into their dinner.

Baby spinach with warm olive oil and walnuts

Martha Stewart, cooking and entertaining expert, offers a recipe for a salad that combines three superfoods: baby spinach, olive oil and walnuts.

The spinach salad gets its deep flavor from the warm olive oil that the walnuts are toasted in. Stewart added that you shouldn’t let the simple recipe fool you.

This recipe only has six basic ingredients and you can make it in less than 20 minutes but it’s tasty and perfect for a light meal.

Incredible Hulk muffins

Brittany Williams, author of ‘Instant Loss: Eat Real, Lose Weight” and founder of InstantLoss.com, rounds up the list with a recipe even your kids will love.

If you have picky eaters at home these Incredible Hulk muffins might change their minds about baby spinach.

Williams came up with the recipe for gluten-free muffins with baby spinach to get her kids to eat more greens. Like a spinach green smoothie, she added that you won’t even taste a hint of the baby spinach in your muffins.

Even if you can’t taste the baby spinach, you’ll still reap the benefits of this amazing superfood.

Ingredients for 24 muffins: 

  • 1 very ripe large banana or 1 medium gala apple, cored and sliced into quarters
  • 1/4 cup raw honey or 3-5 pitted dates
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
  • 1-2 large handfuls of baby spinach
  • 1 cup steel-cut oats
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • Toppings of choice (e.g., dairy-free chocolate chips, dried fruit or granola)

Preparation: 

  1. Preheat your to 350 F, then grease a mini muffin pan with oil or butter. Set aside the pan.
  2. Place all of the ingredients in the order listed above (wet ingredients first) into a high powered blender that can grind grain. Blend until smooth for at least 45 seconds.
  3. Fill the mini muffin pan cups until 3/4 full, then sprinkle the additional toppings. Place the muffin tin inside the oven.
  4. Bake for 12 minutes.
  5. Let the muffins cool completely before serving.

Enjoy baby spinach in pasta or a delicious salad, or sneak more leafy greens into your kids’ plates by serving them some tasty green muffins.

Sources:

NBCNews.com

BonAppetit.com

AlexandraCooks.com

JustATaste.com

TheMom100.com

AbraBerens.com

Domesticate-Me.com

MarthaStewart.com

InstantlLoss.com

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