Getting enough greens on our plates can be a challenging part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Although salads can be delicious, there are plenty of other ways to boost your leafy green intake while keeping your plate diverse and full of flavor. A bag of spinach is the perfect place to start! It’s pre-washed, ready to eat, and pre-portioned for easy measuring. Cook it down into a soup or stew, enjoy it with some fresh strawberries in a salad, or even blend it into your favorite smoothies for an added boost of nutrients. The possibilities are endless when it comes to incorporating spinach into your cooking, so be creative and experiment with different recipes that you already enjoy, or try some new ones!
Spinach Nutrition
Spinach is packed full of flavor and nutrients like iron, vitamin C, vitamin K, and fiber that help to keep our bodies healthy
When is spinach in season in Oklahoma?
Spinach grows quickly, taking only 45 to 50 days to grow from seed, and prefers cooler temperatures and bright sunshine, which makes late winter, early spring, and the later months of summer the best times for growing
If you don’t want to grow your own, you can find spinach in the fresh produce section or freezer aisle of your local grocery store, making it a convenient vegetable to add to your diet any time of the year. While there is no standard size for bags of spinach, the most commonly found sizes of fresh or frozen spinach are 10 and 12 ounces and can be used to make a variety of delicious recipes. Choose Homemade recipes always aim to use the entire bag of spinach to help you reduce food waste!
3 Easy Ways to Use a Bag of Spinach
When it comes to using spinach in your meals, the choice between fresh or frozen can make a difference. Frozen is convenient when spinach is out of season and works well in soups, dips, and casseroles. Meanwhile, fresh spinach works best for salads and can be found at cheaper prices when it’s in-season. It all depends on what works best for you and your family and what dishes you plan on incorporating the spinach into. Here’s an extra tip: If you have leftover fresh spinach that is about to go bad, put it into a freezer bag and use that when you need spinach or want extra greens in your next recipe.
Recipes
There are countless ways to incorporate a bag of spinach into your meals, including trying out recipes from all different cuisines. One way that you can use a bag of spinach in your cooking is by making our Creamy Chicken Spinach Enchiladas. This quick dinner recipe comes together in about 40 minutes making it the perfect weeknight dinner for when you don’t have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen. For this recipe you will need one 12-ounce bag of spinach, saving you time cutting and preparing vegetables and giving you more time to focus on other tasks! This recipe is great for adding more leafy greens to your diet and is an excellent way to introduce picky eaters to a new food. This is a well-rounded and satisfying meal full of flavor and nutrients.
In the mood for a more Italian-inspired dish? This recipe for Creamy Spinach Noodles is a fun and nutritious twist on your traditional pesto pasta and is sure to leave you and your family wanting more. The combination of one bag of frozen spinach, fresh herbs, and cheeses results in a creamy sauce that is perfect for topping spaghetti or even for spreading on a sandwich. This dish is easily customizable- use whatever other noodle shape or type you have on hand and add your favorite roasted vegetables on top!
As the weather gets warmer, it’s becoming easier to find and use fresh ingredients from local farmers markets and grocery stores. This seven-ingredient peachy pecan spinach salad takes 10 minutes to throw together and makes the perfect dish for an outdoor picnic or for those days when you just feel like making something simple. This recipe uses a bag of fresh spinach as the base and is topped with crunchy pecans, sweet peaches, and salty parmesan cheese for the perfect flavor combo. Using a mild leafy green like spinach as a base for salads is an excellent option to increase your variety in greens and also allows you to customize your salad with whatever toppings you like best. Tip: See what fresh produce stands out to you the next time you are out shopping and try incorporating that into your next salad.
Now that you have been introduced to a few different ways to add a bag of spinach to your weekly meals, it’s time to get creative and play around with this leafy green! Add a bag of spinach to your shopping list this week and see how many different recipes you can squeeze a handful of spinach into. Search “spinach” on choosehomemade.org to find all of our recipes that call for spinach!