How to Cook Fresh Spinach to Add to Recipes

Spinach is a wonderful vegetable high in vitamins and minerals such as iron. I have found that it is easy to add spinach into recipes since spinach has a mild taste. I recently cooked up some fresh spinach and added it to our lasagna. The boys did not even notice it!

Most of the time I used the frozen boxed spinach. I recently found some organic spinach for a reasonable price and figured I would cook and freeze it myself (remember spinach is one of the dirty dozen). I did a little research on cooking spinach and found that boiling it would remove a lot of the nutrients. The method below minimizes the nutrient loss for cooked spinach.

First, wash the spinach leaves and cut the stems off. Let the spinach sit for a minute to drain some of the water off.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add the spinach leaves with to the pan with nothing else. All you need is the spinach leaves and the droplets of water remaining from washing the leaves.

Cook for one to two minutes until the leaves are wilted. Drain spinach on a towel.

To add to a recipe, you will want to squeeze a bit of the water out of the cooked leaves. Just take a paper towel and gently roll the leaves. Then chop the spinach and add to your favorite recipe!

Tips

• The cooked spinach can be frozen. Cool the spinach in ice water immediately after cooking. Drain and then place in a freezer container. If you want small portions for recipes, chop the spinach and pack into ice cube trays. Place in freezer. Once the spinach cubes are frozen place them in a freezer bag.
• If you are cooking the spinach to serve as a side dish, you might want to cook it in a splash of olive oil and garlic for added flavor.

What is your favorite recipe to add spinach too? I think spinach would make a good substitute in my Italian Sausage Zucchini Bake recipe.

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Renae Chiovaro

Renae is a married working mom of two handsome boys. She works as a registered dental hygienist by day and blogs here at How to Have it All by night. She enjoys cooking from scratch, working in her vegetable garden and functional training.

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