Day 185: Healthy Creamed Spinach ♥

Creamed spinach is such a favorite vegetable side dish! But my recipe for Creamed Spinach is not the "heart attack on a plate" that you find at a steak house. In fact, let's just go ahead and be honest: my recipe is for healthy creamed spinach, heavy on the spinach, low in fat and still absolutely delicious. It's more "spinachy" than "creamy" which to my taste, means it's perfectly balanced. So for those of us who adore spinach and other bitter greens, put this recipe high on your "make asap" list! Year-Round Kitchen Staple. Great for Meal Prep. Low Carb. Low Fat. Weight Watchers Friendly & Freestyle Friendly. Vegetarian.

In our home, Healthy Creamed Spinach is a such long-time favorite recipe, one served in all four seasons, on weeknights and weekends, for kids and grown-ups, for just-family and company alike. Gosh, I love this recipe! One year, I even made Creamed Spinach four times in two weeks, twice with fresh spinach and twice with frozen spinach. Creamed Spinach is a favorite because:

It's remarkably healthful and reliably delicious.
It makes up without fuss and uses inexpensive ingredients that are often on hand.
It works with lots of proteins but especially steak, pork, chicken and lamb.
It makes a great base for a vegetarian warm salad supper, topped with grilled or roasted vegetables.
Most of all, however, I like how it can be made a half hour or an hour ahead of time and it'll hold – including the bright green color – while I finish the rest of dinner, ever-so-versatile when timing is a question!

Besides, exactly how healthy is my Healthy Creamed Spinach versus a popular recipe from another food blogger? Just check the nutrition comparisons, below. Wow, what a difference.

COMPLIMENTS!
"... it was awesome." ~ TaraTot

HEALTHY CREAMED SPINACH

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 15 minutes
Serves 4

1 pound (450g) fresh spinach, preferably not baby spinach, or 1 pound (450g) frozen spinach

1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion or shallot, finely chopped
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg (don't skip!)
1 cup milk (skim works fine, so does 1%, 2% and whole)
2 tablespoons (.5oz/15g) grated Parmesan or smalls chunk of feta cheese
Additional salt and pepper to taste

For fresh spinach, wash it very well, remove and discard the stems, then chop roughly. Bring a small amount of water to a boil in a large pot, just enough to come to the bottom of a vegetable steamer. Add the spinach (in batches if needed), cover and lightly steam just until tender.

For frozen spinach, defrost the spinach in the microwave. If it's watery, press the spinach through a colander (or in batches through your hands) to remove the excess liquid.

Meanwhile, in a large, deep skillet, melt the butter over MEDIUM HIGH. Add the onion and sauté until soft and fully cooked. (Be sure to cook the onion all the way through.) Stir in the flour, salt and nutmeg until smooth. Reduce the heat to MEDIUM. Add a tablespoon of milk and stir until the milk is smoothly incorporated into the flour. Repeat until all the milk is used. (You're making what's called a white sauce. If you add all the milk, or too much of the milk at one time, the sauce will contain unsavory lumps of flour.) Let the mixture cook, stirring all the while, for a minute, then stir in the Parmesan or feta. Add the spinach to the sauce and stir well, then let cook for a couple of minutes for the flavors to meld.

Taste and adjust the seasonings. Serve immediately or, to hold for serving in 30 – 60 minutes, reduce heat to LOW and cover.

ALANNA's TIPS & KITCHEN NOTES
FROZEN SPINACH While Creamed Spinach is "pretty good" when made with frozen spinach, it's out-of-this-world delicious when made with fresh spinach. I've tried to just dump still-frozen spinach into the sauce and it just doesn't work. The spinach does need cooking, not just reheating, to taste good. Also, frozen spinach often comes in 10-ounce and 12-ounce packages, be sure to scale the other ingredients.
FRESH SPINACH I don't recommend bags of baby spinach, however, for the leaves are so tender, they don't stand up to the sauce. Instead, gather fresh spinach leaves, wash them very well, cut off the stems and the center core, then chop roughly. Just wonderful!
DOUBLE THE SPINACH Believe it or not, I some times double the spinach (either fresh or frozen) but not the rest of the recipe. It's even "more" healthful and can easily serve 8. I might even recommend doubling fresh spinach, since even if you start off with a pound of spinach, once you remove the ribs and stems, you can lose up to 45% of the weight. So if you start off with two pounds of fresh spinach, you'll end up with a generous pound of edible leaves.
OTHER BITTER GREENS Once, I experimented with a mix of fresh spinach and fresh broccoli raab (also called broccoli rabe or rapini). This batch was extra good! Broccoli raab has just an extra bit bitterness that adds a welcome note to the creaminess of the sauce. Very good!

NUTRITION INFORMATION (for my recipe, above, assumes 16 ounces either fresh or frozen spinach), per serving: 123 Calories; 4g Tot Fat; 3g Sat Fat; 11mg Cholesterol; 334mg Sodium; 14g Carb; 4g Fiber; 5g Sugar; 8g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS WW Old Points 2, WW PointsPlus 3, WW SmartPoints 4, WW Freestyle 3 CALORIE COUNTERS 100-calorie serving = 3/4 a serving (7g protein).

NUTRITION INFORMATION (just for an eye-opening comparison, nutrition info for a popular creamed spinach recipe from the internet, definitely NOT my recipe, above), per serving: 305 Calories; 22g Tot Fat; 15g Sat Fat; 63mg Cholesterol; 272mg Sodium; 17g Carb; 3g Fiber; 5g Sugar; 7g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS WW Old Points 7, WW PointsPlus 8, WW SmartPoints 13, WW Freestyle 12

TODAY'S VEGETABLE RECIPE INSPIRATION I don't remember the source of my recipe but it was one of my contributions to our family cookbook in 2002. Yes, it goes back a long ways!

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MORE FAVORITE SPINACH RECIPES

~ Lasagna Soup with Fresh Spinach ~
~ Orzo with Spinach ~
~ Spinach & Artichoke Gratin ~
~ more spinach recipes ~
from A Veggie Venture

~ Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing ~
~ Spinach Soup with Perfect Hard-Cooked Eggs ~
~ Bacon & Egg Breakfast Bake ~
~ more spinach recipes ~
from Kitchen Parade, my food column

SEASONAL EATING: THIS SAME WEEK ACROSS THE YEARS

Healthy Creamed Spinach (<<< year-round staple) Squash Pizza Secret-Ingredient Chocolate Cake Broccoli with Garlic Oyster Sauce Whole Grain Bread (<<< a simplification is the bread I make every week!) Radish D’Avignon Sandwich Salad with Japanese Turnip Spicy Thai Noodle Salad Microwave Acorn Squash Peperonata with Potatoes How to Roast Garlic Stuffed Pumpkin with Apple & Cranberry Roasted Delicata Squash Fried Zucchini Sticks vs Baked Zucchini Sticks Raw Brussels Sprouts Salad Pumpkin Smoothies “Soul Food” Sweet Potato Soup with Chicken, Kale & Coconut Milk

A Veggie Venture is home of "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg and the
famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.

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