Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Buttery, cheesy, salty (from the feta), and savory.
Texture: Is there any texture better than puff pastry? How about puff pastry and cheese??
Ease: Easy enough, the pastry requires some rolling and cutting but nothing difficult. Plus these can be prepared ahead of time!
Appearance: That shiny golden-brown puff pastry is practically food porn.
Pros: Delicious accompaniment to any meal, can be made ahead of time, T-day appropriate.
Cons: None.
Would I make this again? Yes.
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Spinach Puffs are stuffed with a cheesy spinach filling and enclosed in a buttery puff pastry crust. Perfect appetizer or vegetarian meal!
I may be going slightly insane right now. There’s a fly buzzing around my head and a puppy yelping for attention while I’m trying to write this post. Said puppy just learned how to jump on my lap while I’m sitting at my desk this morning which at first was cute but it’s already gotten real old. However, it could be much much worse. At least I have a roof over my head with power, heat, water, food, and phone and internet service. Hurricane Sandy has sure made me grateful for all the things I have. Since it’s Thanksgiving month, I would also like to add that I’m thankful to have received a college education which I’ll be completing at the end of this year. It’s easy to complain about homework and tests and nasty professors but really for any students out there we should just be grateful that we’ve been afforded the opportunity to be in school. There are so many people in this world who will never receive such a gift. What are you thankful for?
Speaking of Thanksgiving, these spinach puffs would make a fabulous snack, appetizer, side dish, or vegetarian dish for T-day. I prefer these over spanakopita any day because let’s face it, puff pastry is way better than filo. Side note, my spell check is trying to tell me to correct spanakopita to “spanking.” For once I’m smarter than spell check!
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Spinach Puffs
Ingredients
- 1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed
- 1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
- 1 small onion, minced
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil,
- 1 teaspoon chopped dill, (I omitted because I dislike dill)
- Kosher salt and black pepper, freshly ground
- 2 large eggs, one for the filling and one for finishing
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry (from a 17.3 ounce package), thawed, rolled out into a 12" square, kept chilled
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray a standard size 6-cup muffin tin with nonstick baking spray.
- Squeeze out as much water from the thawed spinach as possible, too much water will make soggy puffs. Mix the spinach with the feta, onion, garlic, olive oil, and dill (if using). Season to taste with salt and pepper. In a small bowl beat the egg to blend before gently stirring into the spinach mixture.
- Cut the puff pastry into 3 equal strips. Reserve 1 strip for another use. Cut each remaining strip into 3 squares for a total of 6. Place a square in each muffin cup, pressing into the bottom and up the sides, leaving the corners pointing up. Divide the filling evenly among the pastry cups. Fold pastry over filling, pressing the corners together to meet in the center. The pastry cups can be covered and refrigerated up to 3 hours ahead of time.
- Beat the remaining egg to blend in a small bowl. Brush the pastry with the egg wash. Bake until the pastry is golden brown and puffed, about 25 minutes. Transfer the muffin tin to a wire rack to let the puffs cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Run a sharp paring knife around the edges of the puffs to loosen before turning the puffs onto the rack to cool slightly before serving.
can i use phylo dough instead ?
Hi Richard! We haven’t tried that, but I don’t see why not. The bake time may need adjusting, so keep an eye on that. Let us know how it goes!
Like some others I decided to make 9 puffs to use all the dough. I used fresh spinach and just chopped it. Using an egg for the wash seemed like a bit of a waste since the tops didn’t need much. These were kind of fun, both to make and eat.
I assume I will need 3 eggs, 2 for the mixture and 1 for the egg wash? Or is it 1 for the mixture and 1 for the wash? I think I missed something. Thanks.
Hi Sally! The recipe itself is from Bon Appetit November 2012, and the eggs are worded slightly confusingly. I’ll update to reflect, but you just need one egg for the mixture and one egg for the eggwash on top. I hope that helps 🙂
Question: with these measurements, if you’re going to make only six cups, ans have to throw out 1/3 of your (potentially expensive) dough because it makes 9 pieces, why not increase ingredients to fill up the remaining dough? One could use a bigger muffin tin…. just asking!
This is actually not one of my recipes, it’s from Bon Appetit. You’re more than welcome to try that! One reviewer actually said she ended up using the 3rd strip of dough anyway because there was too much filling for her. She ended up with 9 instead of 6. Hope that helps 🙂 Definitely don’t throw out your puff pastry though, there’s many other ways online to use it up!
So delicious and easy! I ended up needing to use the 3rd strip of dough because it was too much filling. I yielded 9 instead of 6.