Quick creamed spinach prepared with cream cheese within minutes over the stovetop.
Recipe includes instructions for fresh and frozen spinach and some ideas to enhance the dish further to your needs.
Global Food Recipes
with Spices and Herbs
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📕 What's Creamed Spinach?
Creamed Spinach is served as a side dish. Fresh or frozen spinach is cooked in a creamy cheese sauce.
The creamed spinach was mainly popularized in steakhouses in the US. It's a delicious addition to steaks.
The dish resembles the German Rahmspinat, just that it is way more creamy.
The German creamed spinach is prepared with heavy cream instead of cream cheese and it's lighter.
🧀 Ingredients
You will need the following ingredients to make this dish.
- spinach - fresh or frozen. I prefer baby spinach as it's more delicate.
- cream cheese - like Philadelphia or another brand
- milk
- oil - I use olive oil but regular cooking oil will do too
- onion
- garlic fresh (fresh garlic makes all the difference!)
- dried herbs to season - can be thyme, oregano, Italian seasoning, or herbes de Provence
- black pepper and salt
- grated cheese - I like parmesan, cheddar or mozzarella (not the fresh ball variety). You can use a combination too.
Other Optional Ingredients that you can add
I didn't add any of these ingredients to my creamed spinach but you can pep up yours if you like.
You can add other greens too besides the spinach such as kale, collard, turnip greens, amaranth leaves and mustard greens.
Or stir in other vegetables such as mushrooms, leeks, bell pepper or zucchini to make it a whole vegetarian meal.
I have tried adding meats and seafood too. Bacon, chicken strips or shrimp are my got to choice.
If you want to make this dish healthy, switch the cream cheese with sour cream, creme fraiche (UK and France), half and half (US). Or skip the cream cheese altogether and the cheese, but it won't be that creamy.
🔪 How to make creamed spinach on the stovetop?
You can make this quick creamy spinach with fresh or frozen spinach.
Here is an overview on how it's done from scratch within minutes over the stove top.
The adjustable US and metric measurements are located at the bottom of this post. The video is the pop up on the mobile.
Step 1
Using fresh spinach: Clean and briefly cook for 3-5 mins in water. Strain, press together to get rid of excess water, and cut small.
Using frozen spinach: Thaw spinach and cut small
Step 2
Heat up a skillet with oil and saute onion, garlic and spinach and add seasoning.
Step 3
Stir in cream cheese, milk and grated cheese.
Combine over heat and cook until you are satisfied with the taste and result.
🥣 Serving
Creamed spinach makes a wonderful side dish in small quantities with most main course meals.
It works a bit like a sauce, so I usually serve it with filet mignon or mini beef wellington.
You can use it like a pasta sauce too by mixing it into cooked pasta of your choice.
Another idea is to serve up your creamed spinach as a party dip.
🍱 Storing
Store leftover in an airtight container in your fridge and use within 3 days.
You can freeze your homemade creamed spinach in smaller batches too.
Thaw overnight in your fridge or reheat over the stovetop or in your microwave in a suitable container.
💭 FAQs
Yes it's keto and low carb because it contains protein-rich cream and spinach. It doesn't contain sugar.
Use fresh spinach if you have time to cook and if you want more nutrients in your food. Pick baby spinach because it's more delicate and easier to blanch (quick boil). I only use fresh spinach if I can find good quality spinach in stores, and I try to avoid fresh spinach that has been sprayed with pesticides (they go in the soil and spinach is quite sensible to that stuff, which in turn can harm our health). Frozen spinach is great when you want to cut prepping and cooking time. You can use frozen spinach, which you prepped after your harvest, too.
👁️ More Spinach Recipes
- Spinach cream cheese stuffed chicken
- Cannelloni pasta shells stuffed with creamy spinach
- Spinach ricotta stuffed pork chops
📖 Recipe
Creamed Spinach with Cream Cheese Recipe
Ingredients
- 9 Ounce Spinach or 1 cup frozen, *see Notes
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- 1 Medium Onion
- 2-3 Pieces Garlic Cloves
- 2 Teaspoon Dried Herbs Thyme or Oregano, *see Notes
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- ½ Cup Milk
- ¾ Cup Cream Cheese
- ½ Cup Shredded Cheese parmesan or cheddar *see Notes
Instructions
- If you use fresh spinach: Prep your fresh spinach. Rinse and pick out withered leaves. Keep a small pot with water to boil and place spinach leaves in to blanch (aka cook briefly) for 3 minutes. Take out from the water and place into a prepared bowl with ice water to halt the cooking process instantly.
- If you use frozen spinach, just thaw it and remove excess water.
- Chop spinach and keep it aside.
- Chop onion and garlic.
- Heat up a skillet with oil and saute onion and garlic.
- Stir in spinach and saute.
- Season with dried herbs of your choice (see notes), black pepper, and salt. Mix up and sautee over a medium heat setting.
- Stir in cream cheese, milk and grated cheese. Combine while cooking it still over a slow to medium heat setting.
- When it's all well mixed and hot, it's ready to be served up.
Notes
- Use fresh or frozen spinach. I prefer fresh baby spinach or regular spinach leaves if possible vs frozen spinach. If I’m in a hurry, I will use frozen thawed spinach too.
- Use thyme or oregano or Italian seasoning or herbs de Provence seasoning blend.
- For the cheese choose grated parmesan, cheddar, mozzarella, Monterey, gruyere, or Emmental cheese.
