This spinach pie recipe is crispy, cheesy and customizable
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Years ago, when I lived in Astoria, Queens, with a large black-and-white cat named Indiana Jones, I used to start my one day off each week with spanakopita. At my favorite Greek bakery, a kind woman named Lydia knew my order by heart: three of the walnut-honey cookies called melomakarona, one square of custardy galaktoboureko and a dozen triangular spanakopita.
On my walk home, I would eat two or three of the still-hot spinach-and-feta pastries, small as a toddler’s fist, wondering if I could live on spinach pie and honey cookies alone, phyllo crumbs blowing away behind me like gilded confetti.
It’s no big secret that I don’t feature much meat in this column. I grew up eating it at practically every meal — bacon with breakfast, ham sandwiches for lunch, arroz con pollo for dinner — but that’s not how I eat anymore. A lifetime of learning about the world around me, about how other people eat, about what feels good in my body and what’s best for the planet has shifted my diet. Maybe it’s shifted yours, too?
To that end, I always try to suggest other ways to make recipes, both for those with dietary restrictions, and for others, like me, who may be moving toward a more plant-based diet.
Dinner tonight is an open-face spanakopita pie, in honor of Lydia’s pastries. It’s got a pretty traditional spinach-and-feta filling. But, like most of the recipes I write about, it’s entirely adaptable. Here are ways you can tweak it.
The filling here calls for scallions and baby spinach, but the markets are absolutely overflowing where I am now with all sorts of leafy green things peeking out of baskets and stacked neatly on folding tables. (Isn’t this season grand?) If that’s the case where you are, too, put them to use!
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I’ve made this pie entirely with parsley, chives, cilantro and dill — it had some real kuku sabzi vibes — and once used scraggly radish and beet tops, well chopped, plus a tablespoon of dried basil. I’ve heard from some readers who can’t eat onions or garlic, and if that’s the case for you, omit the scallions. Pretty much any kind of dark, leafy green works, but if you use anything sturdier than spinach — I’m looking at you, chard, kale and collards — cut out any thick ribs and chop or shred it well before sauteing.
If you don’t have phyllo, or are gluten-free, you could certainly bake the filling in a greased pie dish and serve it like a crustless quiche instead.
Sheep’s milk feta is traditional in spanakopita, but any salty, crumbly or grated cheese, including the vegan kind, is great here. Think: cotija, chevre, extra-sharp white cheddar, paneer or pecorino. (You could also skip the cheese, if you want.) The breadcrumbs catch the extra moisture from the greens, or use cooked rice or another grain instead.
Finally, eggs help keep the filling together, but you can use an egg substitute, or skip them, if you don’t mind a looser pie. It still will be beautiful, shiny as ruffled taffeta, full of the earth’s greenest goods, a little salty, a little creamy, and just the way you like it.
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