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Stovetop-cooked Spinach for Pasta

How To Cook Spinach For Pasta

Ingredients

  • Fresh spinach or baby spinach

Equipment

  • Sauté pan with straight sides
  • Plate or tray
  • Potato ricer (optional)

Instructions

  1. Fill up your sink or a bowl halfway with cold water, then gently swish the spinach around in the water to get rid of any dirt. Make sure not to stir it too much so that the dirt can sink to the bottom of the water. Take the spinach out, drain and discard the unclean water, then do it all over again if required.
  2. To dry the spinach, place it on a kitchen towel. You don’t necessarily have  to dry the spinach thoroughly, but make sure to remove as much moisture as possible.
  3. Set up a sauté pan over medium heat on the stove. Toss in the spinach. It’s fine to pile the spinach up a little because the leaves will wilt rapidly, but everything might not fit into the pan at first.
  4. Toss the spinach with tongs until all the leaves that have not wilted get in touch with the pan’s bottom.
  5. Put in any spinach that is remaining and continue to mix while the spinach cooks down. You’ll know it’s done when all of the spinach has totally wilted and turned a bright green color.
  6. Take the spinach out of the pan and place it on a plate to cool until the steam disappears.
  7. Gather the spinach into a compact ball and squeeze the ball as hard as you can as soon as it has cooled. Make sure to do this over the sink or into a basin if you intend to preserve the spinach juice. You may need to squeeze the juice out of the leaves in batches or, if you have one, make use of a potato ricer.
  8. Season the spinach with pepper, salt, and any other flavorings if you’re planning to eat it on its own.

After following all the above steps, you’ll have delicious spinach on your hands that you can use in your pasta recipes for a healthy and tasty twist. It’s important not to overcook the spinach so as not to get it into a soggy quality.

If you’d like to see more recipe ideas for cooking spinach for pasta, we recommend that you watch this video recipe.