II was re-reading through my Spinach Pie recipe from Thanksgiving. I made two of them around that time. I was kind of planning on mixing things up a bit. Maybe to add tomatoes and maybe some Greek yogurt? Which I guess would make it more like a quiche than necessarily a pie? But I was reading through my old recipe notes and realized that I tried pulsing the spinach in the Cuisinart and decided that I not supposed to! Which is disappointing to me because I hate chopping an entire pound of spinach into non-stringy pieces. Because I absolutely cannot stand chopping lettuce!
There are a couple of changes that I wanted to make, though. For starters, I want to see if I can mix the spinach in a food processor or whether I actually need to chop it. And I'm wondering if I actually need to cook any of the ingredients beforehand. The first time that I made this recipe, I more or less followed the basic idea of sautéing onion and garlic, hand chopping copious amounts of spinach, and layering with phyllo dough, feta, parmesan, and eggs. Exactly how much of each of these ingredients seems to vary widely from recipe to recipe. And I laughed quite heartily when Martha Stewart's Spinach Pie recipe suggested adding 4 whole onions to an 8 serving dish. Because everyone absolutely wants a mouthful of half an onion per serving! But I persevered.
After a few more spinach pie recipes under my belt, I have decided that yes, you do want to hand chop the spinach. You can lightly pulse the spinach. But it needs to be so lightly pulsed, as to not purée it, that this is almost as tedious as just chopping it by hand. I don't really like long, stringy pieces of wilted spinach. So, this would have been a great shortcut if it worked! But I would suggest chopping it. The dish is also still fine if you don't cook the onion and garlic beforehand. It does create a more complex flavor profile. But you can absolutely skip this step if you're looking to get through this a little bit faster! Which yes, I often am. Because hand oiling both sides of every single sheet of phyllo dough could use a hack for.
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Variations of Spinach Pie
I am a big fan of spinach in everything from spinach pies to dips and sauces. If I can sneak a little bit of spinach into a recipe, I absolutely am going to! It's incredibly nutritious, flavorful, and versatile. But more importantly, it's simply one of the easiest things to sneak into a good recipe that might otherwise be missing something.
This Spinach Pie consists of yellow onion, garlic, fresh spinach, feta, parmesan, Greek yogurt, eggs, tomatoes, and phyllo dough. You can make your own phyllo dough. Although it's also readily available in the freezer isle of most grocery stores. Either way, spinach pie is a great Greek dish that's simpler to make than it looks. If you can put together a lasagna, spinach pie is within reach!
Add onions and garlic to a food processor. Pulse a few times, just until the produce begins to break down into roughly chopped pieces.This isn't explicitly necessary. You can chop the onions, garlic, and spinach by hand. I'm really just being lazy here!
Either roughly chop or very quickly pulse the spinach in the food processor.
Combine spinach, onions, garlic, feta, parmesan, Greek yogurt, eggs, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. It doesn't have to be perfectly mixed together. As long as the spinach is coated and the egg is relatively dispersed, you'll be fine!This also involves quite a bite of fresh spinach and requires a very large bowl. It's vastly easier to just mix it by hand. Even in the largest bowl that I own, trying to mix it with a spatula didn't work so well and kind of just made spinach and cheese bits fly out of the bowl! So, I'm going to go ahead and recommend that you get your hands dirty.
Phyllo Dough
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Meanwhile, grease a large baking dish with olive oil.
Pour spinach mixture into the backing dish, add tomatoes, and top with phyllo dough.Phyllo dough is best greased between sheets with butter or oil. I use a little glass spray bottle filled with olive oil and spray each of the sheets on both sides before stacking. Alternatively, you can melt butter and brush on. You can technically cook phyllo dough without greasing it, but it will retain a chalkiness that isn't always pleasant. Adding some kind of butter or oil is highly recommended!
Bake
Bake for 45 minutes, or until the phyllo dough on top has started to brown and flake.
Let cool slightly and cut into 2-inch squares. Serve immediately.
Tips, Tricks, & Notes
I used fresh spinach for this recipe. You can substitute frozen spinach, but you'll end up with a lot more moisture than with fresh spinach. Some people prefer this denser consistency. If you're like me and looking for something a little bit fluffier, use fresh spinach. You can chop it either coarsely or finely. Just don't pulverize in a food processor or, like with frozen spinach, you'll end up with too much moisture. To combat the pulverized or frozen spinach dilemma, wrap in paper towel and wring out. This will slightly wilt the leaves, but you are about to cook it!
This recipe works great for leftovers. Just reheat in the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for another 15 minutes, or until heated throughout. If the phyllo dough browns too quickly, you can either oil or butter the top of the phyllo dough before cooking or simply remove the top layer after cooking. I don't have a microwave and haven't tried to reheat it in one, but I don't suspect that it would work all that well. There is a large amount of egg in this recipe that might not do well in the microwave and I suspect that the rapid heating might make it gummy.
You also don't have to use all of the phyllo dough. It will still retain some chalkiness and some don't find that very appealing. If you stack too many layers, they become dense and gummy or the top layers may separate and become too flaky and burn. The general rule of thumb is at least 5 layers.
Make sure to also get phyllo dough. It can be easy to confuse phyllo dough and puff pastry in the grocery store. Mine are sold side-by-side by the same company and have virtually identical packaging! They're both a layered pastry and might appear quite similar. But phyllo dough should be about the consistency of tissue paper and puff pastry is a dough, more like a fluffy pie crust. You could technically use puff pastry in a pinch, but it would be more of an upside-down pie with the crust on the top than what you typically think of in a spinach pie, which is crisper and flakier. More like a savory baklava than an American or European pie.
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