Spinach Puffs

These spinach puffs are perfect for when you want an appetizer that’s easy and fast to make. These puffs use puff pastry, but they’re very similar to spanakopita, a Greek dish made with a cheese-and-spinach filling sandwiched between layers of phyllo dough. The puff pastry is light, flaky and has a buttery flavor that phyllo doesn’t. The resulting dish is creamy and tender with a little crispiness, and it’s sure to be a favorite of many. This spinach puffs recipe makes several servings, but you can easily multiply it if you want to freeze some for later.

Ingredients for Spinach Puffs

• Puff pastry: Homemade puff pastry can be difficult to make, so don’t feel bad about using store-bought. If you’ve stored the puff pastry in the freezer, give it about 20 minutes at room temperature to thaw.
• Spinach: Use frozen chopped spinach that’s been thawed for this spinach puffs recipe. It’s softer and easier to work with than the fresh leaves you find in the produce section.
• Cheeses: Cream cheese, mozzarella and feta form the bulk of the filling and help bind all the filling ingredients together.
• Eggs: One egg goes into the filling and gives it some structure as it bakes. The other is for an egg wash that will help the puff pastry turn golden in the oven.
• Garlic: Along with salt and pepper, garlic provides much of the flavor for the filling. It will become more mellow during cooking, so you’ll have garlic flavor without the harsh bite of raw garlic.

Directions

Step 1: Shape the puff pastry

Sheri Silver for Taste Recipes

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Unfold the puff pastry sheets and cut them into 12 sections each. Grease the cups in a mini muffin pan, and place each puff pastry in a muffin cup. Gently press the pastry against the bottom of the cup, and pat the rest of the pastry piece up against the sides of the cup. The corners of the pastry square should point up out of the cup.

Step 2: Make the filling

Sheri Silver for Taste Recipes

Mix the spinach, cream cheese, mozzarella, feta, one of the eggs, garlic, pepper and salt in a large bowl.

Step 3: Fill and bake

Sheri Silver for Taste Recipes

Fill each pastry square in the muffin pan with 1 tablespoon of filling, and pinch the corners of each pastry square together over the filling. Beat the other egg in a small bowl and brush over each pastry. Bake the puffs for 20 minutes, until the pastry is golden-brown and has puffed up.

Sheri Silver for Taste Recipes

Spinach Puff Variations

• Add bacon: Cook some bacon (pork or turkey, your choice) and crumble it into the filling before assembling the puffs.
• Add dill: Try adding some fresh dill to the filling for a more tangy flavor.

How to Store Spinach Puffs

Place leftover, cooled puffs in an airtight container, and store them in the refrigerator for up to four days.

Can you freeze spinach puffs?

If you want to store them for longer than four days, place the cooled puffs on a baking sheet and freeze them for about 30 minutes, and then put the puffs in a freezer-safe container in the freezer for up to three months. If you think you’ll be eating them later rather than sooner, wrap the puffs carefully in foil before placing them in the freezer container. That helps reduce the risk of freezer burn.

Can you make spinach puffs in advance?

You can make the whole, assembled but unbaked puffs up a few hours in advance. Keep them stored in the refrigerator, covered.

You don’t want the filling making the pastry dough soggy, so making them too far in advance isn’t a good idea, unless you plan to freeze them. You can make the filling in advance and store it in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to two days or in the freezer for up to three months; you can freeze the unbaked, assembled puffs for up to three months as well. When you add the filling to the puff pastry, place the pan in the freezer for about 30 minutes, and then wrap the puffs in foil. Transfer those to a freezer-safe container.

Spinach Puff Tips

Sheri Silver for Taste Recipes

Can you leave out the feta cheese?

You can definitely leave out the feta if you’re not a fan. Use more mozzarella in its place to end up with the same amount of filling.

Can you use phyllo dough instead of puff pastry?

Given that spinach puffs are essentially a puffy version of spanakopita, you’d think that phyllo dough would work if you didn’t happen to have puff pastry around. You could try using phyllo, but the results would be different. Phyllo won’t puff up like puff pastry does, and phyllo is more crispy than flaky. It could be worth trying just as an experiment, but if you’re making these puffs for a party, stick with puff pastry.

Why didn’t the puff pastry puff up?

Working with puff pastry can be difficult. If the puffs seem a little too flat and not very puffy, the temperature of the puff pastry could be to blame. The puff pastry should be cold when you place it in the oven. That means that once you take the pastry out of the refrigerator, or once the pastry has thawed enough to be easy to work with, you’ve got to move fast. In fact, you might want to try making the filling before cutting the puff pastry. Handling the pastry dough when putting it into the muffin cups can warm it up too much.

Another potential culprit is hotspots in your oven, especially if the rising and puffing seem uneven. You may want to calibrate your oven if you haven’t checked its ability to warm up evenly in a while.