★ Why You’ll Love this Recipe ★
This creamed spinach is easy to make using fresh or frozen spinach. This dish is always a hit at holiday dinners. It's a great vegetarian addition to your Thanksgiving or Christmas menu.
Simply Delicious
Seasoned with shallots, Parmesan cheese and white peppers. Made creamy with creamed cheese and a butter + flour roux. Finally, water chestnuts add a perfect amount of crunchy texture to this otherwise thick and rich dish.
Creamed spinach is an easy holiday or pot luck side dish.
What's special about this recipe is the water chestnut. They are a nice little surprise that everyone raves about. They add just a little crunchy which perfectly balances out the thick, creamy texture of this side dish.
A Green Bean Casserole Alternative
This recipe is easy to make and is a great alternative to green bean casserole for holiday meals like Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter.
Freezer Friendly
This tasty side dish can also be made in a big batch and frozen in portions. Reheat for a quick side dish with dinner, any day of the week.
Inspired by Boston Market's Creamed Spinach
Boston Market uses a blend of cream cheese and Parmesan cheese. If you're looking to replicate Boston's Market's recipe at home, you'll find this combination along with the garlic-oniony taste of the shallot, really nails the flavor. My own addition is the water chestnut. They add a fun crunch which you can skip, but I recommend trying!
★ Ingredients You'll Need ★
What ingredients do you need to make this homemade creamed spinach recipe?
Lots of spinach of course! Here's everything you will need to turn it into a creamy, delicious dish you can eat by the spoonful:
- Butter. Salted butter. My husband loves Kerrygold butter. It does have a really smooth, buttery taste but any real butter works best. You can substitute with margarine if you'd like.
- Flour. All-purpose flour combines with the butter to form what's known as a "roux" which thickens the sauce.
- Shallot. This is a tiny member of the onion family that offers a slightly sweeter taste than an onion. I find it to be a happy medium between garlic and an onion. Adding finely diced shallots to your creamed spinach will enhance the flavor. If you don't have shallots then you can use any onion you have handy, but a sweet variety would be best. You may want to also add garlic if you are using an onion.
- Milk. Adding milk to the butter and flour mixture finishes off the roux and creates a velvety sauce.
- Cream cheese. Whipped cream cheese tends to blend more quickly and easily with the roux mixture but block cream cheese works too.
- Parmesan cheese. You can use any kind of Parmesan cheese — grated in the shaker bottle, shredded, shaved or you can even visit the deli and get the real deal grated Parmesan cheese.
- Nutmeg: A little bit goes a long way. Nutmeg adds a slightly nutty flavor to this creamy sauce which tones down the bitter notes of spinach.
- White pepper: Regular black pepper would work in this recipe, but in a creamy sauce the more mild bite and earthy flavor of white pepper are just perfect.
- Spinach: You want to use frozen spinach, not fresh. Fresh spinach contains a lot of water and went cooked, that water will release into your cream sauce making it runny. The flavor will also be overly earthy because of this excess water (read: it will taste like dirt ha ha). So be sure to use frozen chopped spinach. Thaw it, then press and/or squeeze out as much water as possible before adding to the cream sauce.
- Water chestnuts. Adding this little bit of subtle crunch really elevates this dish and is a fun surprise that everyone seems to enjoy.
★ How to Make this Creamed Spinach ★
You can watch the video below the recipe below to see the process in action or check out this step by step guide for a quick glace and how it all comes together:
Here's what's involved:
- Melt butter.
- Add chopped shallots.
- Whisk in flour then add milk to cream your roux.
- Add cheeses, nutmeg, spinach and water chestnuts.
- Heat, stir then serve!
It's surprisingly easy!
★ Tips & FAQs ★
What to Serve with Creamed Spinach
Creamed spinach goes especially well with meat and potatoes. This is also a delicious side dish to serve with a traditional Thanksgiving meal. You could serve instead of green bean casserole or in addition to as another vegetable side dish option.
★ More Recipes You'll Love ★
Want more side dish ideas?
I have lots of ideas for you! Browse all my side dish recipes. Pin your favorites for holidays, meal-prep or to jazz up your weeknight dinners.
This Boston-Market style easy creamed spinach recipe was featured on South Your Mouth!
Creamed Spinach with Water Chestnuts
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon butter
- 2 tablespoon flour
- 1 large shallot diced
- 1 ½ cups milk or MORE as desired to thin out sauce
- 4 oz whipped cream cheese softened
- 2 tablespoon shredded Parmesan cheese or more to taste
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt or more to taste
- ¼ teaspoon white pepper or more to taste
- 40 oz chopped frozen spinach, thawed and pressed 4 blocks
- 4 oz water chestnuts drained and minced
Mighty Mrs. is a #WalmartPartner.
Instructions
- Thaw and press excess water from spinach using a colander. Set aside.
- In a small dutch oven or large skillet, saute shallots in butter over medium heat until translucent.
- Then whisk in flour until thick. Let bubble for about 1-2 minutes to reduce the floury taste.
- Slowly pour in milk then add cream cheese and parmesan cheese. Stir until a thick sauce is formed. Add salt, nutmeg and white pepper.
- Immediately stir in thawed and squeezed spinach and minced water chestnuts until thoroughly mixed. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, then it's ready to serve!
- If you need to transport this, put it in your crockpot and set to warm.
Video
Notes
Equipment
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Joyce Nunnery says
I been looking for this recipe for a long time. Thank you.
Peg says
Just the two of us tonite so I made about a third of the recipe.
Out of cream cheese.
Didnt use milk.
Substituted with 1/4 c mayo,
1/4 c heavy cream and
1/4 c crema
Came out really good!
Bea says
Modified it a bit based on what I had on hand. Blanched some fresh spinach, and used Alfredo sauce instead of cream cheese and parmesan. It was outstanding!
Recipe but I used fresh spinach and just 2% milk it came out excellentMary says
Great Recipe but I used fresh spinach and just 2% milk it came out excellent