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.
SAUTÉED SPINACH
Spinach is one of the worlds healthiest foods. It’s also very easy to cook, especially when it’s sautéed with lots of garlic!
All you need for this recipe are these 3 ingredients plus salt and pepper:
Good quality olive oil
Fresh garlic
Fresh or frozen spinach
- 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.
- 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.
- Add a teaspoon or two of water and cover 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:
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.
Craving more delicious healthy side dishes? Here are a few other tasty Panning The Globe vegetable dishes to try:
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!
PrintSautéed Spinach and Garlic
A simple, delicious and healthy side dish of tender spinach sautéed with garlic.
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 20 mins
- Yield: 4-5 1x
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: stove top
- Cuisine: Italian
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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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Alex G
January 28, 2019 at 11:04 amEasy and garlicky, definitely a great side dish to make.
★★★★★
Nancy
November 12, 2015 at 10:40 amI LOVE this recipe. So simple yet so delicious. Thank you!!
★★★★★
KalynsKitchen
November 1, 2015 at 8:03 amHappy November! Just letting you know that I featured this recipe in my October 2015 round-up of Deliciously Healthy Low-Carb Recipes. Hope a lot of my readers will click over here and try it!
Lisa
November 1, 2015 at 9:24 amI just checked out your roundup – such great recipes Kalyn. Gotta health-it-up before the holidays so we can totally indulge! Thanks so much for including my sautéed spinach recipe!
Laura @MotherWouldKnow
October 13, 2015 at 9:40 amLove this simple spinach – often get it as a side in Italian restaurants where the garlic can usually send you through the roof. But IMHO, fresh spinach always in this type of recipe. (The frozen stuff is fine when it’s in soup or a casserole, but as the star of the show – never!:)
Rachel (Rachel's Kitchen NZ)
October 9, 2015 at 2:42 pmLOVE, LOVE spinach and adore it done this way – big favourite in this house:-)
Jane
October 9, 2015 at 2:38 pmTasty! I’m a cast iron fan, but I avoid steaming my veggies in cast iron on the grounds that it’s hard on the seasoning. Maybe it’s ok in this recipe, though, because you’ve got a decent amount of oil that you’re not stirring, so that’s protecting the bottom of the pot.
Lisa
October 9, 2015 at 3:35 pmThat’s a really interesting point Jane. I haven’t had any problems with my cast iron skillet and I make garlicky vegetables with this method often, so I think it’s fine. But if you make it, please let me know if your pot’s seasoning holds up.
jen
October 9, 2015 at 11:11 amCan’t believe I didn’t know about your Pinterest Vegetable Board. WOW! Heaven.
Lisa
October 9, 2015 at 12:01 pmHi Jen – I’m so glad you have it now – there are so many amazing ways to cook with vegetables and I’m always on the hunt for great inspiring recipes!