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:
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Tammy says
How do I adjust for a 13″x9″x2″ pan?
Elana says
Tammy, I haven’t tried that so not sure :-)
Susan Gibilisco says
I made this recipe last year – I used soft dried cranberries from Trader Joe’s instead of currants. It was amazing! Looking forward to making it again this year :)
Elana says
Susan, thanks for letting me know this Spinach Cake is amazing!
Kathleen says
This is also fabulous made with fresh nettles, and a wonderful way to get some wild food into your diet. Just be sure the nettles are well wilted to avoid the sting.
Elana says
Thanks Kathleen!
Beulah says
Thank you for your scrumtious spinach cake recipe. After burning a batch of nuts and garlic, I decided to experiment and threw ingredients into the Cuisinart. I included defrosted frozen spinach, eggs, pecan pieces instead of pine nuts, oil, garlic granules and salt. No currents. It was one of the best kugels I ever ate at Rosh Hashona.
Elana says
Beulah, thanks for letting me know this spinach cake was scrumptious :-)
Dorothy Dobson says
Thanks for this info. We have a hard time getting pine nuts in our small town, so good to know pecan pieces might work.
Elana says
Thanks Dorothy!
Holly says
I made this tonight. I left out the currants since I’m on a keto diet and instead put crumbled bleu cheese on the top right when it came out of the oven. Yum! I’d never had spinach cake before and this was pretty good. :)
Elana says
Holly, that sounds amazing!
K Woodson says
Great recipe. Would make a few changes, half of the pignolis and I needed way more spinach so I added sauteed kale that I chopped. Again, great recipe, will definitely make often!
Elana says
Thanks K!
Connie says
I love pine nuts but too expensive. What can we use as substitute for pine nuts?
Lisa Eacott says
I used cashews and it was great. I just pulsed them in the food processor to make them pine-nut-size.
Hillary says
I just made this. It is soooooo good!
I kind of changed it around only because of what I had in my house. So I didn’t have enough spinach so I threw in kale and bok choy. I didn’t have pine nutes so I used almonds instead. I used raisins instead of currants. I used ginger, cumin, cinnamon, sumac, garlic, cardamom, turmeric, paprika, and ginger. It was fabulous!!!!
I sent this recipe to my mom. Maybe this will show up at our Passover Seder.
Elana says
So glad you liked it Hillary!
Bonni says
I made this last night as a tester for party I’m having next week. I LOVE it! Might try it with arugula next time.
That said though I wonder if I should jazz it up a little making it an hors d’oeuvre rather than a side. Maybe add a little cheese? Any thoughts on this? Thanks!
Elana says
Bonni, so glad you enjoyed! I think it would be a great hors d’oeuvre!
Lisa says
This dish was so simple and delicious. My 7 yr old daughter now loves spinach! Amazing.
Elana says
Lisa, so glad to hear you liked it, and that your daughter now loves spinach!
Sarah says
Thank you Elana,
We ate this last night and it was delicious (I didn’t have currants, but used organic raisins and it worked just fine) I’m crossing my fingers that it freezes OK as this would be a perfect make ahead meal with a fresh salad.
Sarah says
Thought I’d update anyone thinking of freezing leftovers. I froze some and would not recommend it. It didn’t taste anywhere near as nice after defrosting. At least, not to me.
Mergatroyge says
Because eggs are the primary source of binding and moisture, I would not recommend freezing this dish. (And I am someone who freezes EVERYTHING possible – – I have even figured out how to successfully freeze mashed potatoes before Thanksgiving with little to no loss of quality!)
My family adores this recipe. I often substitute toasted sunflower seeds for the pignoles to save money, however. I prefer the pignoles, but organic pignoles from sources other than China are extremely expensive. I make this recipe too often to use them every time.
Elana says
Mergatroyge, so glad to hear you and your family adore this dish!