Spinach Rice turns rice into an elegant side dish! Garlic, dill, and feta cheese add great flavor to this Mediterranean-style dish.
Here’s a fun way to turn everyday rice into an elegant side dish: spinach rice! After years of cooking, we discover fun tricks like this one. Take plain old white rice and cook up a spinach and garlic casserole, then season with a squeeze of lemon and sprinkle with feta cheese. It’s an elegant Mediterranean-style side dish to serve to your guests or simply use to brighten up weekdays. And it’s a great way to fill up with spinach. Delicious and fresh flavors are unreal!
How to Make Spinach Rice: The Basic Concept
Spinach rice is a mix of spinach and rice, and often other aromatic flavors like onion, garlic, dill, and feta cheese. The traditional Greek version is called Spanakorizo, who often added tomatoes or tomato paste. This recipe is inspired by the Mediterranean flavors of this dish (if you want a more traditional twist, go for this one Spanakorizo Recipe!).
The basic concept is to cook rice with spinach and spices until the liquid is reduced. Note that the spinach rice will end up being a bit stickier than a standard fluffy rice: that’s expected here! Here’s the basic concept (or jump to the recipe below):
- Fry the garlic in olive oil, then add the spinach and sauté. It takes about 3 minutes in total.
- Add water, rice and spices and cook for 15 minutes. At this point the liquid should be reduced.
- Leave for 5 minutes. This will help the rice cool and harden.
- Stir and add lemon juice, dill and feta. These additives enhance the flavors! See below for more.
A few notes about the service
One thing we love about this Mediterranean spinach rice is that it’s loaded with spinach, which not only adds nutrients but also helps extend serving size. We can often polish a lot of rice, but adding spinach and flavoring helps make it more satisfying.
Don’t have fresh dill? No matter: you can do without it! But it does add some fresh flavor (don’t bother adding dried dill). Fresh lemon juice adds punch: we recommend using it whenever possible.
Ways to serve spinach rice
Spinach rice is the perfect side dish to make your meal elegant and thoughtful! We like to do this for guests, but it also works to categorize a meal on a weekday. Here are some great ways to serve it:
More spinach recipes
Do you like to add spinach to your recipes? Here are some tastier spinach recipes to take advantage of that nutritious leafy green:
This spinach rice recipe is…
Vegetarian and gluten free.
The description
Spinach Rice turns rice into an elegant side dish! Garlic, dill, and feta cheese add great flavor to this Mediterranean-style dish.
- 2 Garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 6 cups (5 ounces) baby spinach (or chopped standard spinach)
- 1 cup long grain white rice
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- Juice 1/2 lemon (2 tablespoons)
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, optional
- ¼ cup crumbled feta cheese
- Chop the garlic. In a medium-sized saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic and sauté 1 minute until fragrant (but not golden). Add the spinach and cook until tender, about 2 minutes.
- Add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Add rice, salt, garlic powder and onion powder. Make sure it’s simmering, then cover and cook for 15 minutes, uncovering occasionally and checking to make sure the heat isn’t too high.
- After 15 minutes, check that the water is fully boiled (if not, boil for another minute or two, but that should be done at this point). Remove from the stove and let stand covered for 5 minutes. Uncover and stir with a fork, then stir in the lemon juice and chopped dill. Garnish with crumbled feta and serve.
- Category: garnish
- Method: Cook
- Kitchen: rice
- Diet: vegetarian
