Vegan Spanakopita
(aka greek spinach pastries)
Guys, this is important: if you never tried a greek spanakopita before, 1. please do it immediately and 2. (there’s no number 2, just please go and get yourself this extremely delicious greek snack, ok??) To further emphasize my statement I’m going to throw in some keywords here at this point: Crunchy Phyllo Pastry. Spinach. Onions. Olive Oil (a loooot of olive oil). A culinary experience of a savory, hearty, and subtly sweet taste combo… Ok, I’m done.
So ‘spanakopita’ is greek and roughly translates to spinach pie or spinach pastry, and that’s exactly what it is: a crispy baked phyllo pastry with spinach filling. It’s also one of the most popular snacks next to the classic tyropita (aka cheese pastry) for on-the-go in Greece. And for me, it definitely is the no. 1, because the ‘nistisimi spanakopita’, which is available especially in the weeks of easter lent, is vegan most of the times anyway, yay!
and now here’s the recipe for:
Vegan Spanakopita
Ingredients (for 3 pastries):
for the spinach filling:
roughly 200g fresh spinach
1/2 white or yellow onion
a few tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp vegan cream cheese or natural cashew butter
some parsley (to taste)
nutmeg (to taste)
salt and pepper
some plant based feta cheese alternative (optional)
also:
about half of a store-bought plant based phyllo dough
some sesame seeds for decoration
Instructions:
To make the filling peel and cut the onion into very small chunks, and then sauté it in a pan with some olive oil until fragrant and soft.
Wash the spinach and press out the excess water. Chop it together with the parsley and add to the sautéed onion until the spinach starts to wilt.
Season everything with salt, nutmeg and pepper, remove any excess water if necessary* and stir in cashew butter or vegan cream cheese. (The mixture should thicken slightly and turn creamy then.)
Now remove the finished filling from the heat and let it cool down slightly. If you want, you can also crumble in some vegan feta cheese at this point.
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and cut the phyllo dough sheets into three big stripes.
For each spanakopita you’ll need 3 single phyllo sheet stripes. Brush each with some olive oil and layer them on top of each other.
Then add about 1-2 tsp of the spinach filling to the end of the stripe and fold it into a triangular shape, so that the filling is completely surrounded by phyllo dough.
Lastly brush the phyllo pastries with some olive oil once again, add some sesame seeds and bake them for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Done! Now you got some delicious vegan spanakopita! :)
also fun fact: the lovechild of spanakopita and tyropita is ‘spanakotiropita’ meaning spinach-and-cheese-pastry.
I love this.
*Notes:
Spinach loses a lot of water while cooking, therefore make sure to remove any bigger excesses of water so that you're filling doesn’t get too liquid-y in the end.
Did you make this recipe?
leave a comment or tag me on Instagram @choartemi