Skillet Spanakopita Recipe (2024)

It's an interesting concept, but a lot easier to make in a 9 x 12 baking dish (a much more common method among Greeks) where you will have less overhang of the phyllo. Just up the spinach to 2 pounds and up the feta a bit as well. You'll have to use 8 sheets of phyllo on the bottom and 8 on the top. Scoring before you bake. When you use that size dish, you get 12 pieces and it'll be easier to cut: https://bit.ly/33M1cw5

Curious. Why wouldn't you cook and wring water from spinach before adding it to the leeks and garlic? Seems you are wasting all those yummy seasonings down the drain.

Haven't cooked this yet--though I plan to. But as far as expressing liquid from the cooked spinach, a humble potato ricer--the unsung hero in my kitchen--works exceptionally well.

An easy, tasty version of traditional spanakopita. However, I have a bone to pick with NYT Cooking. For the past 2 years, I've used NYT recipes for 90% of my meals. Y'all need to be more honest w/ cook times. This recipe says 1 hr + 10 min cooling. Just the time on the stove and in the oven is 50 mins. It's another hour for prep, at least. This is not the only recipe that has taken twice as long, or more. It happens a lot. You're going to ruin my marriage to a woman who expects dinner at 8:00p.

Using fresh spinach is tedious and needlessly expensive. All versions of Spanakopita that I have tried work very well using thawed, good quality chopped frozen spinach. You can thaw it in the microwave or take it out the night before or in the morning or a couple of hours ahead of time and then wring out the moisture and add it to the leeks, etc.

I just made this for the first time and wow, what a delicious feast. This is a great showstopper for a dinner party. One note: I did not keep the sheets of phyllo stacked as I spread butter on them but rather buttered each individual sheet on the baking sheet while the others stayed covered with the towel.

Terrific recipe. I brushed butter on the bottom and sides of the pan, then added a sheet of phyllo and brushed butter on it once in the pan, then repeated with all 8 sheets. Much easier than buttering first then trying to lift and place without tearing

This is delicious but method for cooking spinach is needlessly tedious. Just cook all the spinach at once in the biggest pot you have, cool, squeeze out excess moisture with your hands then put in large bowl to combine with rest of ingredients. This avoids over-salting and squeezing out flavor as someone else has stated. Don’t skip the lemon. It’s marvelous! Will definitely make again & again & love it in my old cast iron skillet!

I'm Greek and I have made spanakopita dozens of times but I found this recipe to be easy and a novel way of making it. The trick of cooking the spanakopita on the stove in order to crisp up the bottom is pure genius.

I made this yesterday afternoon and it was absolutely delicious! It takes some time but it is quite easy to make overall. I didn't have phyllo dough but I did have Trader Joe's frozen puff pastry. The puff pastry is very easy to work with and the resulting pie was amazing!

It is spectacular and delicious (restaurant quality), as long as you don't overdo the salt, which means don't salt the spinach after each addition -- just 2 or 3 times will do it. Allow 2 hours from start to finish. I made it on a weeknight for two of us, so, yes, I'd like to know if the finished product will freeze well.

The crust should freeze well if baked just to a light brown. Then you could make filling on a weeknight and heat it at a lower temp to revive and give a little extra browning for the crust. The large baking dish version cited by Christina X also freezes very well. The original NYT Cookbook has a recipe for the best "spinach & feta strudel" I have ever had (P. 30). It's from the home kitchen of Leon Leonides who was the owner of The Coach House, a big name Manhattan restaurant in the 1950's.

This looks wonderful - I am eager to try it! One hint when you are trying to squeeze liquid from your spinach: take out that potato ricer you rarely use and use that; works like a charm!

General question here about working with phyllo. Anyone ever try brushing with olive oil rather than butter?

Excellent question. I'm Greek, have been making spanakopita most of my life - I don't precook the spinach! Use the baby spinach or if using large leaf bundles spinach, chop 'em up. Spinach will cook just fine in a hot oven.

Delicious! Easy to make if you start prep early and do a bit throughout the day. 1) No fresh dill at the store (it's March) so carefully substituted a little dried. 2) Used two 10-ounce packages of frozen spinach. 3) Generous two Tbsp. olive oil to cook the leek and garlic, and then 3) added the well-squeezed spinach to the pan, stirring everything together. 4) Used 2 Tbsp. melted butter and 3 Tbsp. olive oil for basting the phyllo dough. Beautiful dish with lovely crispy bottom layer.

Made exactly as written. Used ricer as recommended by another to get rid of water from spinach. Enjoyed by all. Leftovers were good as well.

My husband could only find puff pastry squares and I realize that was not the meaning of this recipe but it was delicious!

Save yourself some trouble and make it with puff pastry. I have made it twice and the filho dough is a pain and comes out no better than puff pastry. I also used beet greens and spinach which were delicious.

Sop up leftover butter with remaining sheets of phyllo, scrunch up and lay on top of already scrunched phyllo.

This is the first time I've used an iron skillet to make this dish and it worked very well.

This came out beautifully. The prep was a bit of a chore, but easy enough to do. Everyone finished their dinner and asked for more!

I just made this tonight - it's my new favorite recipe! I used New Zealand spinach (from my garden) instead of baby spinach and I was out of dill so I ground some dill seed (again, from the garden and sieved it after grinding) and this was exceptional. Thank you for this delightful recipe!

An excellent recipe and one that I should have followed to the tee. Instead, I thought it would be a good idea to try to cook the bottom before adding the spinach mixture because I was scared it might not cook properly after the moisture was added. I therefore cooked it without folding the phyllo in, but this resulted in the excess pastry on the sides getting crispy, so it was already flaky when I added the spinach and tried to fold the pastry in. Won't do that again!

Save time by subbing a 10 oz package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained (a potato ricer works especially well for draining), and add it to the sautéed leeks/garlic.

I made with frozen spinach otherwise as directed. This was super and fun to make. Its even better at room temp. My husband whom isn’t big on leafy greens loved it.

Thom is definitely correct. Prep/cooking time for many NYT recipes are grossly underestimated. Perhaps NYT has a sous chef doing all the prep work so the assembly time is correct. This recipe took me more than 2 hours.

Good, but a bit too lemony. And I agree with another comment… took much longer than indicated by the recipe!

I loved this recipe! Delicious spinach pie. Will keep this recipe and use it frequently. Thank you.

This was the best spanikopita I've ever made. I added extra lemon zest and juice and I so that was a unique add for me, in addition to the dill- which did not overwhelm but complimented the flavors. I've had problems with getting a good-enough bake on the bottom, historically. The 5 minutes on stove-top did the trick! I will make again and again.