What Is the Best Way to Prepare Spinach?

Fresh spinach can be eaten raw or cooked. When buying, make sure the leaves are bright green, firm, and crisp, and ideally prepare the spinach the same day you buy it. Otherwise, it will wither quite quickly and is then no longer so appetizing.

There are two types of spinach: leaf spinach is suitable for pasta with spinach sauce, salads, casseroles, spinach spaetzle, sauces, stews, and other dishes. Root spinach tastes very aromatic, but is usually not eaten raw because it is not so easy to process in salads. There is also frozen spinach, which can be used directly in oven dishes, stews, or sauces, but once thawed it is too limp and unsightly for salads.

For salads, you should gently but thoroughly clean the leaves. Then it can be used like a green salad. To prevent the leaves from absorbing too much water and becoming mushy, you should only dip small portions at a time into standing, cold water and carefully use your fingers to wipe off any dirt, sand, and other dirt. Drain the washed leaves in a colander or dry in a salad spinner.

If you want to cook spinach, keep in mind that fresh spinach has a larger volume than cooked leaves. It shrinks to about an eighth. Otherwise, spinach has a very short cooking time. Therefore, the leafy vegetables are particularly suitable for blanching or steaming.

If you want to blanch spinach, you have two options. You can pour boiling water over the leaves in a colander and then rinse them with cold water. Or you can put the leaves in small portions in boiling salted water for 10 to 20 seconds. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon and drain in a colander. Finally, use cold water to rinse the blanched spinach leaves with this method as well. The advantage of this cooking method is that the vegetables remain relatively al dente and most of their nutrients are retained.

Steamed spinach can be prepared particularly tasty if you first steam finely chopped onions in a little oil until translucent. Then add the spinach and let it sauté with the onions for about 5 minutes. Seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and nutmeg, the leafy vegetables taste great as an accompaniment to boiled potatoes, for example. If you want the spinach to be part of a stir-fry with meat, simply add it directly a few minutes before the end of the cooking time and let it cook with it.

If you want to reheat dishes with spinach, you should consider a few things. For example, the vegetables should be cooled quickly after cooking. Because of the nitrite content, children should only eat freshly cooked spinach dishes.