We can all agree that creamed spinach should be creamy, but a creamy experience does not have to come from cream or cream cheese, I used ricotta instead, resulting in an equally top-quality outcome. Additionally, creamed spinach, or Spinach a la Creme as I know it, is about the spinach, held together by a creamy velvety sauce. It’s not a sauce with a lot of spinach.
Key Ingredients in This Recipe
You’ll find the complete list of ingredients and exact quantities in the recipe below.
- Spinach – fresh over frozen, but frozen will work as well. Don’t chop the spinach or used chopped frozen spinach. Chopped spinach may create a creamed spinach that may resemble baby food.
- Onion – I prefer a sweet onion, but a yellow work as well. The milder the onion the better in this recipe, in my opinion. The emphasis is on the creamy spinach and should not be ‘interrupted’ by a piece of sharp onion.
- Butter
- All-purpose flour
- Milk
- Ricotta cheese – contains less fat, more protein than cream or cream cheese.
- Gruyere cheese – a great melting cheese.
- Nutmeg
How to Make Creamed Spinach
Important outcomes of a good creamed spinach are:
- Creaminess
- A consistent texture, not a watery sauce, but also not a cream sauce with spinach. It is creamed spinach not spinached cream sauce.
Step 1 – Bring a little bit of water to a boil over high heat, add the spinach (in batches if needed) and cook/blanch until the spinach has wilted. This will take about 1/2 minute. Drain in a colander and reserve some of the water. Squeeze out as much water as you can without pushing the spinach through the colander.
Step 2 – Melt butter in a skillet and add the onion and some salt. Cook over medium heat, until the onin is translucent, no need to brown the onions.
Make a roux by adding all-purpose flour and allow it to absorb all the butter.
Step 3 – Add milk and ricotta and still. Simmer on low heat for about 3-5 minutes, allowing the sauce to thicken until it will coat a spoon or spatula. Add the grated cheese and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Step 4 – Add the spinach and stir until you have a uniform mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning.
If the creamed spinach is too thin or a little watery, cook over medium-low heat until excess liquid is evaporated.
If the creamed spinach is too thick, thin out with some of the ‘spinach water’ you kept behind, or with some milk.
- Serve the creamed spinach in a bowl and sprinkle with some grated Gruyere cheese.
Alternative and Substitutions
- Spinach – whether you use fresh or frozen, make sure to squeeze as much water out of the spinach before you add it to the sauce. Adding uncooked spinach to the sauce creates a very wet/diluted/liquid sauce. In order to compensate for that water that the spinach will release no matter what, you’ll need to add more cheese, or more flour or you need to cook the creamed spinach longer to get rid of all that liquid. In principle there nothing wrong with those corrections, but if you blanch the spinach first there is very little to correct afterwards.
- Garlic – if you want to use garlic, sweat it at the same time as you sweat the onion.
- Ricotta cheese – as mentioned before, you can use cream cheese or heavy cream or even Mozzarella (if you like the looks of a cheese pull).
- Gruyere cheese – Parmigiano Reggiano cheese is also widely used in creamed spinach, but I believe that Gruyere cheese does more to creating a creamy texture than Parm does.
Serving Suggestions
- Any type of meat, poultry or even fish pair well with creamed spinach. Think about pork tenderloin, like Pork Wellington or Turmeric-Yogurt Marinated Chicken or Grilled Rainbow Trout.
- As far as a carb combination, again you have many choices. Pasta, risotto (check out my Spinach Risotto), polenta, crispy French fries (that sounds delicious) or a baked potato or even mashed potatoes.
- Creamed spinach is almost a dip, so bread with be good combination or tortillas.
Creamed Spinach
Pin Recipe FacebookIngredients
- 1 pound baby spinach, NOTE 1
For the Sauce
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1/4 onion, sweet or yellow – chopped
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/4 cup ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup Gruyere cheese, grated
- salt & pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Instructions
- Bring a little bit of water to a boil over high heat, add the spinach (in batches if needed) and cook until the spinach has wilted. This will take about 1/2 minute. Drain in a colander and keep some of the water. Squeeze out as much water as you can without pushing the spinach through the colander.
- Melt butter in a skillet and add the onion and some salt and cook over medium heat until translucent (no need to brown the onions).
- Make a roux by adding all-purpose flour and allow it to absorb all the butter.
- Add milk and ricotta and stir. Simmer on low heat for about 3-5 minutes, allowing the sauce to thicken until it will coat a spoon or spatula. Add the grated cheese and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
- Add the spinach and stir until you have a uniform mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning. (NOTE 2)
- Serve the creamed spinach in a bowl and sprinkle with some grated Gruyere cheese.
Notes
- Don’t chop the spinach, nor use chopped frozen spinach. You want to keep the leaves of the spinach intact, otherwise you may create creamed spinach that has similarities with baby food.
- If the creamed spinach is too thin or a little watery, cook over medium-low heat until any excess liquid evaporates. If the creamed spinach is too thick, thin out with some of the ‘spinach water’ you kept behind, or with some milk.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.