Spanakopita

Jeff the Chef

Spanakopita: Greek spinach and cheese pie with a phyllo pastry crust. You’d think it’d be hard, but it’s pretty approachable. And so worth it! So satisfying and delicious.

Spanakopita
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Spanakopita

Recipe by Make It Like a Man!Course: Dinner, Main
Makes

15

servings

Note that it might take anywhere from three hours (at room temperature) or overnight (in the fridge) to thaw frozen phyllo.

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs (4 eight-oz. bags) baby spinach

  • 1 large yellow onion, finely chopped

  • 4 scallions, finely sliced

  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced

  • 2 generous Tbs dried parsley

  • 4 large eggs

  • 8 oz. feta, crumbled

  • 2 generous Tbs shredded Parmesan

  • 1/2 tsp salt

  • Black pepper, to taste

  • Pinch of nutmeg

  • 1 stick butter

  • 1 lb. phyllo dough, thawed if frozen

Directions

  • Heat a large soup pot over a medium flame (setting 4 out of 9). Add the oil, wait a few moments, and then add the onion and scallions. Cook until softened, 5 to 7 minutes. In the last minute of cooking, add the garlic and stir constantly.
  • Add one of the bags of spinach. Toss constantly until it begins to wilt, then toss in the next bag and repeat. Once the final bag is beginning to wilt, continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the spinach releases its liquid, 5 minutes. Increase the heat to high (setting 8) and cook, stirring often, until the liquid is evaporated and spinach is dry, 7-10 minutes. You’ll know it’s just about dry when the sound of the boil turns into a sizzling sound. Off heat. Stir in the parsley.
  • Let stand until cool enough to handle. (At this point, the spinach mixture can be refrigerated overnight.) Wrap in a double-layer of paper towels and press gently, to remove any remaining liquid.
  • In a medium mixing bowl, lightly beat the eggs. And the spinach mixture, feta, Parmesan, salt, pepper, and nutmeg and stir to combine.
  • Lightly oil a 9×13″ baking pan and orient it so that one of the short ends it facing you. We’ll call that the “southern” edge. Melt the butter. Unroll the pastry on a dry surface. Take one sheet of pastry and orient it so that its long and short ends match that of the pan. Lay it into the pan so that it covers half of the bottom of the pan, goes up the northern wall, and overhangs that wall. Do a mirror image with another sheet, overlapping it by about an inch with the first sheet, and overhanging the southern wall. This is your first layer. Use a pastry brush to brush it with butter. Use about 3 dips of the brush, so that the pastry is generously covered, but not sopping. Don’t neglect to brush up the overhanging walls (but don’t bother brushing beyond the top edge of the pan).
  • For the second layer, orient a pastry sheet so that its short edges align with the pan’s long edges. Place it into the pan so that one edge butts up agains the northern wall, and it overhangs both the eastern and western walls. Place a second sheet up again the southern wall, in the same manner. If these two sheets overlap by more than an inch, let them be. However, consider grabbing up about 1/3 of the remaining sheets, and trimming them along their long edge so that you’ll have less overlapping in subsequent east-west layers. Brush with butter.
  • Continue until you have eight layers.
  • Spread the spinach mixture evenly over the pastry. Add eight more layers of pastry in the same manner as before. Use kitchen sheers to cut the all the overhanging pastry so that it comes up and over the top of the wall, but doesn’t really overhang much if at all. Roll each overhang right into the pan, creating a rolled edge around the entire pie. Brush these rolls with butter, and as you do, use the pastry brush to tuck them rather tightly into the edge of the pan. Use a sharp knife to cut through the top layers of pastry, going into the filling, but being careful not to let your knife touch the bottom pastry layers. Make two north-south cuts, evenly dividing the pie into thirds. Make four east-west cuts, evenly dividing the pie into fifths. This will give you 15 nice-sized servings. If you want, you can make further cuts in between all the cuts you just made, thereby creating 30 appetizer-sized servings. Refrigerate the pie for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375°F.
  • Bake until crisp and golden, 50-60 minutes, turning the pie halfway through. Remove from oven and let stand a few minutes, then trace through all of your cuts, cutting all the way through the pie.
"Spanakopita," from Make It Like a Man!

Social Learning

I learned this great onion-sautéing tip from a Mollie Katzen cookbook, many years ago: just after you’ve poured your oil into the pan, toss in one of the onion pieces. When you see that it’s starting to sizzle, it’s time to toss in all the onion. That way, there’s no guess-work about whether or not the oil’s not enough.

You can swap fresh parsley for the dried. Use 1/4-cup if you do. I always have leftover parsley. Who doesn’t? I never throw it out. Instead, I mince it all up and let it dry by a sunny window. Once it’s dry as paper, I store it. I like dried parsley in this recipe, because it soaks up moisture from the spinach, helping you get the right consistency for the filling.

If you reheat leftover Spanakopita in the microwave, you’ll lose the pastry’s crunch, which is rather disappointing. It will still taste good, though. To maintain the crunch, you’d have to heat the leftovers in the oven.

The Backstory

I loved the way this dish came out. The crispiness of the pastry is just absolutely delightful and such a fantastic foil for the soft interior. In the filling, you get the flavor of the egg, the tang of the cheese, and mild flavor and substantial satisfaction of the spinach. I would make it again in a heartbeat, and I’d be quite pleased to serve it to guests. It’d be quite nice for serving guests in other ways, too: it could sit complete assembled in the fridge, and its baking time, if you tossed it into the oven as soon as your first guest arrived, would leave you just about the perfect amount of time for cocktails and hors d’ouvres.

You’ll have leftover phyllo, which you can do all sorts of things with.

"Spanakopita," from Make It Like a Man!
Spanakopita

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man!, unless otherwise indicated. Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. References: “Greek Spinach and Cheese Pie (Spanakopita)” in The Joy of Cooking, edited by Irma S. Rombauer et al, 417. New York: Schribner, 1997. Also NYT. Make It Like a Man! has been ranked by Feedspot as #14 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs. Keep up with us on Bloglovin’

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60 thoughts on “Spanakopita”

    • Thanks, Karen. I always used to think that keeping dried parsley around – the kind you can buy at the store – was a waste, because it just tasted like paper. But when you dry it yourself and use it in a reasonable amount of time, it tastes pretty good.

      Reply

  5. I love spanakopita — for me, it is usually one of the few Greek dishes I can order out without garlic. I need to try your recipe (without the G) — it looks amazing, How on earth did you get it to cut so beautifully? Love the Mollie Katzen tip, and for parsley, I chop and freeze in 1 tablespoon clumps. Then, when fully frozen, I put the clumps in plastic bags.

    Reply

  6. Wonderful. I remember when exactly I made this, and my second child had just been born. Why oh why haven’t I made this since?!! Yours looks perfect.

    Reply

  14. Many years ago in a Chinese cooking class the chef said to use 1-2-inches of the green part of a scallion to test if the oil was ready. Parsley reminds me of bananas – you always have to find ways to use it up. This dish was a specialty of a sister – I never tried to make it but should probably give it a go. A piece of yours would be perfect for my lunch today 🙂

    Reply

  15. Yours looks delicious Jeff. I’ve never made it with the phyllo pastry, but I have some in the freezer. My rustic spinach and halloumi pie with shortcrust pastry comes close but yours is the real Greek McCoy. I would love some right now, it’s lunchtime here. It’s great to have the dried parsley on hand

    Reply

    • Thanks, Lori! Wish I could send you a piece right through the computer screen!

      Reply

      • Well, I see that such things are available in WordPress, so I’ll look into it. Thanks for the suggestion! Meanwhile, I’ll say that the web browsers that I use (which are the common ones) have their own, built-in translators, which you can set up to automatically translate pages, or to prompt you by offering to do it. You might want to look into how to activate that feature in your browser.

        Reply

        • Thanks I know, my were little suggestion I have translator on my blog but I not write well english I forgot it (I’m retired 79 years old..only used for work…) . Have a nice day.

          Reply

  25. Spanakopita might just be my favorite Greek dish, one that I never fail to order whenever it’s on the menu. As you say, that contrast of textures, the crispy pastry and the creamy filling, is amazing. I’ve never tried making it at home, though. Now that I read the recipe, I might just give it a go. Although it’s a process, it actually sounds fairly doable…
    Frank | Memorie di Angelina recently posted…Cannoli siciliani

    Reply

  26. A great classic for a reason.
    I agree about drying herbs at home – it makes such a big difference. I do the same with mint.
    By the way, I visited Greece a few times, and had a very version with lots of dill in it. 🙂

    Reply

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