Cooked Spinach

Including spinach in the regular diet plan is an easy way to ensure good health. The soft fresh leaves are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. The high percentage content of iron and calcium in spinach is worth mentioning. This high nutritional value makes spinach an excellent food for kids and children who are in their growing years. Nevertheless, studies have shown that boiling, cooking and storage processes reduce the nutritional content of fresh spinach.

With an objective to reap maximum health benefits, people opt for consuming fresh spinach as raw foods or by preparing salads. A major concerning issue with this is contamination of minute disease-causing microbes such as E. coli and salmonella in the spinach leaves. Thus, to minimize risk posed by such pathogens, food experts recommend consuming spinach in cooked form. Let's first take a look at the method of cooking spinach.

How to Cook Spinach?

Not many of us are familiar with having spinach either raw or cooked dishes. If you are a parent, you already know how your child reacts at the mention of cooked spinach recipe. Although you cannot alter the taste of spinach totally, you can at least make it tastier and more palatable by cooking properly. A simple way is to saute it in vegetable oil with culinary herbs. To cook this way, you will need 1 bunch spinach, 2 cloves garlic (minced), 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, salt and red pepper flakes.

Prepare spinach by trimming off the thick stems and wash properly under running water. Using a salad spinner, remove as much water as possible from the leaves. Then, chop spinach coarsely with a kitchen knife. Preheat olive oil in a thick skillet and saute garlic for a 1 minute in medium heat. Add spinach to the skillet and turn it with the help of a spatula. This will help coat spinach with olive oil and garlic. Cover lid and cook for 1 minute. Turn again and cook for another minute with the lid on. As the leaves are wilted, turn of the heat. This is how you can cook tasty spinach.

Cooked Spinach Nutrition

The calorie content in spinach is so low that it is listed as a negative calorie food. Coming to cooked spinach calories, having one cup of this green vegetable provides you only 7 calories. Very often, dietitians recommend cooked spinach as a supplement food to help weight loss. Having it also helps fight free radicals, cancerous cells, bone problems, cardiovascular disorders and many other medical conditions. So, incorporate loads of cooked spinach as side dish in meals in order to minimize calorie intake, while getting all the nutritional benefits from it. Know more on spinach health benefits.

Recipes Using Cooked Spinach

Cooked spinach goes well with omelets, grilled meats, green salads, vegetarian lasagna and many other vegetarian dishes. Peanut sauce, tofu and pine nuts are great ingredients for making cooked spinach recipe. Select culinary herbs and additional vegetables of your choice and make delicious spinach dishes. You can also try out cooked spinach salad recipes, but fresh leaves are usually preferred for vegetable salads either alone or in combination with other greens.

You will find several methods for preparing delectable cooked spinach recipes, out of which steaming and sautéing are found to be excellent ways to conserve maximum spinach nutrition. On the contrary, avoid boiling as it leads to loss of nutrients. And as long as you do not overcook spinach, they will taste yummy. Also, remember not to add excess salt, as spinach already contain high amount of sodium.