This Paleo Spinach Cake recipe is perfect for Passover. We like it so much though, that we eat it all year round. This easy recipe is made with 7 healthy ingredients –spinach, eggs, pine nuts, currants, garlic, oil, and salt. It’s so simple that you can throw it together in just a few minutes.
Our weekly CSA share kicked in recently and we received a ton of fresh organic spinach! For those of you who aren’t familiar, “CSA” stands for community supported agriculture. This relatively new socioeconomic concept changes the way food is produced, distributed, and sold, creating small scale closed markets for farmers in which the consumer participates in the risk and rewards of the farm.
One of the great benefits of the CSA is receiving produce the day it is picked. CSA’s also give farmers more time to do what they do best –grow food. By cutting out the middle man, farmers receive more money for their crops, and save time by not having to market produce to stores. Earlier this year my family purchased a “share” in this season’s crop from Abbondanza. We receive organic vegetables straight from the farm each week during the harvest months.
The bounty of our farm share sends me rummaging through my recipes in search of culinary solutions to vegetable overload. The biggest issue has been spinach. What to do with the several pounds of spinach crowding out the other greens in the veggie drawer of my fridge? Spinach cake of course!
Spinach Cake
Ingredients
- 1½ pounds spinach, thoroughly washed, leave stems on if they are not tough
- 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil or olive oil
- 1 cup pine nuts
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ cup currants
- 2 large eggs, whisked
- 1 teaspoon celtic sea salt
Instructions
- Wilt spinach in a large covered saucepan over low heat (do not add water)
- Drain and cool, then squeeze moisture out of spinach
- Place spinach in food processor and pulse until coarsely blended, then set aside
- In an 9 inch cast iron skillet, warm 3 tablespoons oil, add pine nuts and sauté until golden brown
- Add garlic to pan and sauté an additional minute
- Add currants to pan and sauté an additional minute
- In a large bowl, combine pine nuts mixture, blended spinach, eggs, and salt
- Spread mixture into a greased 7 x 11 inch baking dish
- Bake at 350°F for 30-40 minutes
- Serve
This spinach recipe is based on Claudia Roden’s Tortino di Spinaci. She is my all time favorite cookbook author. I often hear Roden speaking about the history of Jewish food on NPR. She is basically a food historian, as well as a culinary genius.
I hope you enjoy Paleo Spinach Cake as much as we do. Here are some of my other Paleo Passover recipes:
katie h says
Made this today – it is delicious!! Thanks Elana!
Sandra Gillett says
I have only been following your site for a couple of weeks. I am fascinated by your recipes. Everything I have tried has turned out and is delicious. I was excited when I read this recipe because I love all the ingredients separately. I did not have currants so I used raisins. I thought the raisins were too sweet. Since I really like sun-dried tomatoes I added some and they were good but a bit chewy. Even with the too sweet raisins and the chewy tomatoes I thought this was really good and fun to make. Thank you for all you do.
Brianna says
Hi there!
A friend of mine told me about your site and I have to say I really love it! I am looking to start on the Paleo diet and many of your recipes go along with it. I tried this spinach tonight with cranberries and it was devine! Even my picky 2 yr old ate it! I will be putting it on my blog to share with others. Thanks!!!
elana says
Thanks Briannna, I just love hearing stories about 2 year olds eating this type of food!
elana says
Thanks for your comments ;-)
Per the frozen spinach, I haven’t tried that. Feel free to experiment.
Liz says
I made it and it is just delicious!! I will try it with frozen spinach next time. I used raisins and it was great and even my spinach-hating husband liked it.I am so excited about finding your blog.As a previous e-mail said “gluten-free and Jewish” What a great combo…..Terrific!
Lelani says
Question about the spinach: will it work with frozen spinach? if so, how do I measure it?
Ellen says
Wow! Gluten-free, CSA-friendly AND Jewish! And a local! (we live in Superior). I am so thrilled to have found your blog.
elana says
Ninafur,
Thanks for all of these great tips. I especially dig the idea of pumpkin seeds in this dish. Yum.
Chag Samaech!
Elana
Ninufar says
Hello again, & Chag Sameach!
Sunflower seeds = okay.
Pepitas (pumpkin seeds) = fantastic!
They turn the oil bright green while being toasted, though you can’t tell once everything is mixed together.
Also, I can’t find my forum thread on this, so let me report that in the egg-replacing department, I do not recommend the flaxseed trick w/this recipe. That is unless you like stuff to gleam like low-quality (pseudo-)Asian food with too much cornstarch. =-] Mashed white beans worked well, but of course they don’t bind together like the eggs. Worth a try if you’ve got an eater who can’t have any eggs, bc the flavors of the basic recipe are quite yummy.
elana says
susan,
Thanks so much for your comment; glad you enjoyed it!
Elana