Easy Creamed Spinach does not get easier! This simple homemade side dish is so much better than store bought! Wilted spinach is mixed through a silky smooth white sauce, flavoured with sautéed onion and garlic, then served with parmesan cheese. This side dish is a cheese lover’s dream!
Your average creamed spinach could be mistaken for spinach and cream thrown haphazardly together. Well, that might be the case for some recipes but ours is a completely different story. This easy creamed spinach recipe is SO good, it will have you eating straight from the pan!
CREAMED SPINACH
While this easy creamed spinach recipe is the perfect Thanksgiving side, this is something I grew up with…not just on Thanksgiving, but all year round. My mum would whip this up to go with Pan Seared Garlic Butter Steaks, Crispy Beer Roast Chicken, and yes, even Herb Roasted turkey.
HOW TO MAKE CREAMED SPINACH
She cooks this one of two ways. Either using fresh spinach leaves that first get wilted in a pot of boiling water or in a pan with plenty of butter. You can do either!
Because we’re all about convenience at Cafe Delites, we have also included a frozen spinach option for even faster creamed spinach.
WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO NEED
Easy creamed spinach is exactly as easy as it sounds, which means you won’t need many ingredients:
- Baby spinach (frozen or fresh)
- Unsalted butter
- Onion
- Garlic
- Flour (All purpose)
- Milk
- Parmesan cheese
- Nutmeg (optional)
- Cayenne pepper (optional)
- Salt and pepper
You’re going to start by melting your butter in a medium sized pot. Then you’re going to whisk in your flour. Once it has a nice golden colour, you’re going to throw in your onion, then your garlic.
Next comes the milk, followed by your optional seasonings. While that’s happening, you’re going to melt your remaining butter in a separate pan and chuck in your spinach, wilting it in small batches. If you’d rather use water to wilt your spinach, you can pop it into some boiling water before transferring it into a cool water bath.
Once your spinach is sufficiently wilted, pour it into your white sauce and mix. Serve it up and top it off with some grated parmesan cheese.
Voila! Tasty, easy creamed spinach in no time, with all the flavour!
MORE SPINACH RECIPES:
Spinach Artichoke Stuffed Chicken
Skillet Spinach Bacon Artichoke Dip
Spinach and Ricotta Grilled Cheese
Easy Creamed Spinach
Ingredients
- 16 ounces baby spinach leaves washed and dried
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter divided
- 1 onion chopped
- 3 cloves garlic finely chopped or minced
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup milk or half and half
- 1 pinch ground nutmeg optional
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper optional
- ¼ teaspoon salt to taste
- ¼ teaspoon pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese grated, to serve
Instructions
- Melt ¼ cup of butter in a medium-sized pot over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for a couple of minutes until light golden. Add in the onion and cook until transparent (about 2-3 minutes), then add the garlic and cook until fragrant (about 30 seconds).
- Pour in the milk (or half and half), whisking constantly until the white sauce thickens (about 5 minutes). Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg and cayenne (If using). If the sauce is too thick, add another ¼ cup of milk to the sauce, whisking it through until reaching your desired thickness.
- For the spinach: melt the remaining butter in a separate pan, and add spinach in batches, wilting each batch before adding the next, until all spinach is wilted. (Add a small spoon of water if the pan gets too dry.)Alternatively: Cook the spinach in a pot of boiling water for just one minute; then immerse in a cold water bath to stop the cooking process. Squeeze out any excess water from the leaves and set aside.
- Season the cream sauce with salt, pepper, nutmeg and cayenne. Add wilted spinach to the cream sauce, stirring gently to combine. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and serve immediately.
Patti says
This was incredibly easy, and I love that I had all the ingredients on-hand. The taste was fabulous! The cayenne and fresh onions were my favorite things about this recipe. Thank you for sharing!
Gary says
Delicious this will be my favorite side dish. So easy to make. Used skim milk and it was still perfect
Miss Langa says
Oh my God, it turned out perfect! I’m not so good in the kitchen but thanks to you I was able to impress my boyfriend and now it’s his new favorite side 😍
Tee says
Hiya from Cape Town.
This was sooooo… nice! Hubby said he wanted creamed spinach with his steak!
Thankyou for posting 💖
Cletus says
Instead of using another pot just dump the spinach in the same pot with the cream sauce. It will wilt the same way. And for a more concentrated flavor, brown the onions to a dark golden color before adding the rest of the ingredients. I used straight heavy cream in my sauce and didn’t need to add any flour. I just let the pot simmer uncovered to let the sauce reduce. Then turn the heat off and leave the pan uncovered to let it reduce more while stirring occasionally. Used olive oil instead of butter.
Claudia says
Somehow I ended up with a lot of liquid so I threw in two frozen packages (20oz) of spinach and it worked out. I used a heavy hand with the seasoning as it was pretty bland otherwise but remember I also had extra spinach and seasoning is subjected to taste. I recommend throwing in a bit more garlic and cayenne for a touch of spice. Here is the good news, you can make it ahead and it will be better the next day. Thanks for the recipe!!!
Laurie Anne Thompson says
First time making creamed spinach. FANTASTIC…like another reviewer my roux came out very thick so I ended up adding more milk. Next time I will cut the amount of flour by half, but otherwise it may be my husband’s new favorite way to eat spinach. I used 2% milk and it came out silky, flavorful, and decadent.
Pamela J Dale says
Creamy, dreamy, but much too rich if you want to watch calories. The white sauce was too thick so I thinned it with milk. It was so good but I could feel the pounds just latching on to my already too generous thighs. This decadent recipe should only be sparingly. Finally, if done right with the chopping and preparing the spinach, it takes considerably more than 15 minutes to prepare this dish. But we’ll worth it.
Deborah Boyer says
I made this yesterday for our Christmas dinner. I made both ham and turkey so it was perfect. Our son and daughter in law will be here next week for New Years, but we’re combining our Thanksgiving,Christmas and New Year’s Eve meals since I was in the hospital for Thanksgiving and they all had bad colds for Christmas. My son said we’ll call this New Christgiving! LOL He said that should cover them all I know that this will be served again! They Love Spinach! Thank you for posting your super easy recipe. It was AMAZING!
I will say that the next batch I will make the onions much smaller or maybe even use a grater for them so they are super fine. My onions were left more chunkier (not that it was bad, I used sweet onions) but I think if they were much smaller the spinach would shine not the onions! ?
Andrew Johnson says
Excellent! Thank you so much. I am not a very good experienced person in the kitchen but even I could do this dish and it turned out brilliantly.