Sautéed Spinach and Garlic

Sautéed Spinach and Garlic is a simple Italian-style side dish that’s healthy and totally delicious. It can be made with fresh or frozen spinach plus olive oil and garlic. This recipe shows you how to get the best from these simple ingredients – a few tricks to ensure that the garlic melts slowly and get’s soft, sweet and mellow, with the spinach resting on top, absorbing the delicious garlicky flavors, as it cooks.

How To Make Sautéed Spinach

Spinach is one of the worlds healthiest foods. It’s also very easy to cook and very tasty, especially when it’s sautéed with lots of garlic!

All you need are these 3 ingredients plus salt and pepper:

• Good quality olive oil
• Fresh garlic 
• Fresh or frozen spinach

1. Start by heating the olive oil and lots of thickly sliced garlic in a heavy skillet, over low heat.  The idea is to let the garlic melt for few minutes, over low heat. This will soften the garlic and mellow its flavor.
2. Once the garlic has softened a bit, pile the raw spinach on top. Don’t worry if there’s a huge mountain of spinach coming up out of your skillet. Spinach is 90% water. It will shrink a lot when it’s cooked.
3. Add a teaspoon or two of water and cover the pot with a lid. Cook the spinach and garlic, covered, for a few minutes, undisturbed. The water will wilt and steam the spinach and finish softening and mellowing the garlic.  When you remove the lid you’ll have tender spinach infused with the mellow nutty flavors of gently-cooked garlic.

Season the sautéed spinach with salt and pepper, to taste. Enjoy this healthy and totally delicious side dish.

Sautéed spinach and garlic is a great side dish with almost anything. I particularly love it on the side when I’m serving tomatoey Italian dishes such as:

• My Favorite Lasagna
• Chicken Parmesan
• No Noodle Eggplant Lasagna
• Eggplant Parmesan Stacks

If you love spinach, give this Sweet Pea and Spinach Soup a try. If you’re a vegetable lover, visit and follow my Exceptional Vegetables Pinterest Board. It’s filled with tempting vegetable-centric recipes that I collect from blogs and culinary sites across the word-wide web.

Other delicious healthy side dish recipes:

• Moroccan Raw Carrot Salad
• Saag Aloo: Indian Spinach and Potatoes
• Chipotle Coleslaw

Here’s the recipe for Sautéed Spinach and Garlic. If you try this recipe I hope you’ll come back to leave a star rating and a comment. I’d love to know what you think!

Sautéed Spinach and Garlic

★★★★★

5 from 4 reviews

A simple, delicious and healthy side dish of tender spinach sautéed with garlic.

• Author: Lisa
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins
• Total Time: 20 mins
• Yield: 4-5 1x
• Category: Side Dish
• Method: stove top
• Cuisine: Italian

Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons good quality olive oil
• 8–10 garlic cloves, peeled and thickly sliced, crosswise
• 16 ounces baby spinach, washed (you can substitute 2 10-ounces packs of frozen whole-leaf spinach – defrost and squeeze by the handful to remove all the liquid)
• Coarse salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. You’ll need a large skillet with a lid. Spread the oil out to coat the bottom of the skillet (I use cast iron). Place the garlic in the skillet, spreading it into an even layer. Turn the heat up to medium and as soon as the oil starts to sizzle, turn it down to medium-low and let the garlic soften for 5 minutes or so, turning the heat down further if it looks like it starts to brown.
2. Add the spinach in a big heap. Pour in 1 tablespoon of water and cover the pot. Turn the heat up to medium and let the spinach steam for about 5 minutes, undisturbed. Remove the cover and gently stir the leaves, pressing down on any that aren’t wilted. Don’t toss the leaves because you want the garlic to remain in contact with the oil on the bottom of the pan so it will soften and get sweet and mellow.
3. Continue to cook the spinach, uncovered, for another few minutes, until the spinach is completely soft and wilted. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Keywords: spinach with garlic, sautéed garlicky spinach

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