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This Easy Creamed Spinach is the simplest homemade side dish that’s rich, creamy and ultra delicious! 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!
It’s SO much better than the average creamed spinach, which often ends up tasting like spinach and cream thrown haphazardly together.
Why This Recipe Works
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, and honestly I think it’s a brilliant way to get some greens in.
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!
Ingredients
- Spinach: I used fresh baby spinach, washed and dried.
- Flour: Just some regular all purpose flour.
- Butter: Unsalted butter, to cook the flour and for that rich, smooth deliciousness.
- Aromatics: You’ll need fresh garlic and onion, to build that delicious, savory base.
- Half and half: I love using half and half for that creaminess. You can make do with some milk too.
- Seasonings: To season, I used a pinch of nutmeg, some cayenne, salt and pepper.
- Parmesan: For that salty, cheesy kick.
Note: please see recipe card at the bottom for list of full ingredients and measurements
How to Make Easy 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, and honestly I think it’s a brilliant way to get some greens in.
- Prepare the roux: Melt butter in a pot over medium heat and add in the flour. Let cook for a minute or two, keep stirring to ensure it doesn’t burn. add the garlic and onion and cook for a few minutes
- Prepare the sauce: Next, pour in the milk while whisking continuously, until the mixture thickens. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg and add some more milk if needed.
- Wilt spinach: In a separate pan, melt remaining butter over medium heat, add spinach in batches. Wilt spinach before adding in the next batch
- Finish up and serve: Combine the wilted spinach and the cream sauce, top with Parmesan cheese and serve.
There are lots of ways to enjoy this creamed spinach. I love pairing it with my Grilled Steak with Browned Butter and my classic Steakhouse Steak. It’s just such a classic you can never go wrong with.
I also tried it with my Salmon with Creamy Dijon Sauce and the flavors worked beautifully with each other.
And of course, you can also serve it with any of the Thanksgiving classics. I always end up making it whenever I’m making my Herb Butter Turkey or Garlic Herb Butter Roast Chicken.
Recipe FAQ’s
Yes, you can! Simply use a 1 x 16 ounce package of frozen chopped spinach here, and make sure you thaw it first and squeeze it nicely to get rid of all the moisture before you use it.
You totally can. Just remember that you’ll need to chop up the spinach a bit before you use it for the recipe if you’re using regular spinach- just to get that perfect texture.
Yes, stir in cooked bacon bits, shredded chicken, or diced ham for a more filling dish.
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Easy Creamed Spinach
Ingredients
- 16 ounces baby spinach leaves washed and dried
- 1/3 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
- 1/4 teaspoon salt to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese grated, to serve
Instructions
- Melt 1/4 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 1/4 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.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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!
Delicious this will be my favorite side dish. So easy to make. Used skim milk and it was still perfect
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 😍
Hiya from Cape Town.
This was sooooo… nice! Hubby said he wanted creamed spinach with his steak!
Thankyou for posting 💖
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.
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!!!
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.
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.
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! ?
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.