Recipes   > Ingredient Archive   >  Spinach

• Spinach and Herb Gnocchi
• Wilted Spinach and Mushroom Salad
• Fresh Spinach Soup
• Spinach Souffle
• More spinach recipes

Cultivated for thousands of years, spinach is a versatile leafy green that features in just about every cuisine on the planet. In this country, it is the most widely grown green for the table. Despite its long history and popularity, there are scores of spinach haters who remember eating a dark, bitter vegetable tinged with a strong iron flavor. Popularized by the cartoon character Popeye as a muscle-building vegetable, it was something you disliked but were forced to eat, just because it was "good for you."

Forty years ago, spinach commonly was sold in cans (no wonder we didn't like it). Today, that is almost unthinkable. With the advent of air freight and refrigeration, fresh fruits and vegetables from all corners of the globe are available year-round. Baby spinach is a relative newcomer, prized for its convenience and delicate, clean taste. A flat-leaf variety (as opposed to curly, or Savoy, spinach), its leaves are soft and tender, with a very mild flavor. Sold pre-washed in bags (Earthbound Farm offers 5 ounce, 9 ounce and 1 pound packaging), our baby spinach requires no advance preparation. It's perfect for salads or for eating raw, and can be added at the last minute to pasta dishes, stirred into soups, or used in any recipe calling for spinach. Because the stems are so tender, there is no need to remove them. Mature (bunched) spinach generally requires blanching to mellow its strong taste and acidic pungency. Baby spinach, on the other hand, is so mild in flavor that its leaves can be added directly to a dish without this extra step.

Baby spinach is available every month of the year. Look for leaves that are intensely green, dry and not bruised. If you have more spinach than you can use, steam it until wilted, squeeze out the excess water, and then refrigerate or freeze it for a later use.

One pound of baby spinach looks like a lot, but once cooked your pound of leaves will reduce to about 1 cup, losing roughly 80 to 90% of its volume. For calculating yields, plan on 1/2 cup cooked spinach per person. Mature bunched spinach, either flat leaf or curly, can be substituted for baby spinach in any of our featured recipes of the month but will require blanching for best results.

Popeye, as it turns out, was correct in touting the nutritional value of spinach. If eaten raw, it is an excellent source of Vitamin C and beta-carotene. It is also rich in iron, calcium, potassium, Vitamin A and B vitamins. So eat your spinach!