How to Cook Spinach

Be strong like Popeye the sailor man and eat your spinach! If you cook it lightly and spruce it up with lemon juice and garlic, this shouldn't be too much of a chore. You can use cooked spinach when you make vegetarian lasagna and other vegetarian dishes.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Colanders
• Salad Bowls
• Salad Spinners
• Salda Utensils
• Serving Bowls

1. 

   Choose fresh, green spinach without brown or yellow spots.

2. Remove wilted or discolored outer leaves and discard.

3. Wash spinach thoroughly to remove sand or dirt.

4. Remove excess water from leaves with a salad spinner.

5. Trim off tough stems as much as possible, and remove any root material.

6. 

   Chop or use whole leaves - you can also chop the spinach after cooking, if you wish.

7. 

   Cook spinach the easy way by dropping it into a hot skillet with just the water that still clings to the leaves from washing. Fold the cooked spinach at the bottom of the pan over the uncooked leaves at the top. Keep adding leaves as the spinach cooks down. The spinach is cooked when the leaves are wilted completely but still bright green, which takes about 2 minutes.

8. 

   Sauté spinach with garlic, oil and some red pepper flakes - again, it'll be done in about 2 minutes. Accent with lemon juice.

9. 

   Stir-fry spinach with garlic and ginger. Top with tofu and peanut sauce.

10. Use cooked spinach in omelettes and frittatas.

Tips & Warnings

• Spinach shrinks dramatically in volume when cooked. One bunch might serve four people as a side dish... if they're not especially fond of spinach, that is. Good thing it's pretty cheap.
• If using cooked spinach in a recipe, you'll probably want to squeeze all the water you can out of the cooked spinach, then chop it.
• For a simple peanut sauce, combine 1/4 c. smooth, preferably unsweetened peanut butter with 2 tbsp. hot water; add 2 tbsp. soy sauce, 1 1/2 tbsp. vinegar, and 1 to 2 tsp. Asian chili garlic sauce.

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[AuntieAndrea]

on 6/10/2009 Wow, I was just looking up how to cook fresh spinach right and got a great tofu recipe! Love tofu 5*