My skillet garlicky spinach recipe will make everyone in your family a fan! It's ready in under 15 minutes with just a few ingredients and tastes just like an upscale restaurant side dish landed in your kitchen at home.
And if you enjoy this recipe, you'll love my pan-fried brussels sprouts or sauteed garlic green beans and mushrooms, too!
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❤️ Why You'll Love this Recipe
Quick and Easy - With a cooking time of under 10 minutes and just one pan, sauteed spinach with garlic and lemon is a beginner-friendly recipe that you can throw together to complete any weeknight meal.
Lots of Garlicky Flavor - We're using garlic two different ways for layered nutty, pungent, almost sweet flavor all up and through the spinach.
👉🏾 I love adding so much flavor to vegetable dishes that even the pickiest eaters in my family request them! Check out my garlic butter green beans, roasted baby bok choy, curry carrots, and alfredo cauliflower next.
Featured Reader Review
★★★★★
"I just made your skillet garlicky spinach, DELISH! Easy recipe with big flavor! No worries about storage, there wasn't anything left. Used bread to soak up every drop that may have been left in the pan and bowl."
-Mina
What You'll Need for this Recipe
Fresh Spinach, of course, is the star of this dish. You can use regular spinach or baby spinach but I highly recommend fresh either way.
Garlic and Garlic Powder for extra garlicky goodness and texture.
Butter and Olive Oil provide a combination of fat types and a good balance between richness and subtle flavor. You can use one or the other but will get the best taste using both!
Check out the recipe card below for full ingredients list, measurements, nutrition facts, and step-by-step instructions!
Substitutions & Variations
Lemon Juice - Use either fresh-squeezed lemon juice or concentrated lemon juice interchangeably here but I don't recommend using any other citrus like orange, grapefruit or lime. If you don't have lemon juice available, a touch of white vinegar can work--just use half the amount.
Frozen Spinach - If you need to make this recipe from frozen spinach, I recommend fully thawing it first and pressing out as much of the water as you can. The texture will be slightly different because frozen spinach is already partially cooked but the flavor will be similar.
Mixture of Greens - You can also make this recipe with a combination of spinach, baby kale, and or arugula!
Vegan - Use all olive oil or a plant-based butter to make this dish vegan.
How to Make Garlic Wilted Spinach
- Step 1: Melt the butter and olive oil together then add the garlic and spices.
- Step 2: Add in the raw spinach.
Pro Tip #1
The smaller you cut the garlic, the more infused its flavor will be throughout the finished dish. This is why I prefer to use a garlic press to make quick work of getting little bitty pieces.
Pro Tip #2
Cooking the garlic and spices in the oil and butter is a process known as "blooming" and it deepens their flavor while also distributing that flavor through all the cooking fat. Win-win!
- Step 3: Stir and cook until spinach is coated in the spiced butter and oil mixture and wilted.
Pro Tip #2
This recipe doubles, triples, and even quadruples easily. Take note of the serving information in the recipe card below because we all know the disappointment of a huge amount of raw spinach yielding a microscopic amount of cooked spinach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Store the cooked spinach in an airtight container and refrigerate. Keeps for up to five days. You'll know the spinach is going bad if it has a slimy texture and an off, slightly sweet smell.
Yes, though the texture will be softer once thawed than it would have been when eaten freshly cooked. To freeze, cool the spinach to room temperature then transfer to an airtight, freezer-safe container then into the freezer. Keeps for up to three months.
How to Serve
The quick cooking time makes sauteed garlic baby spinach the perfect side to complete an easy weeknight meal. Serve it with 15-minute lemon pepper shrimp, or tomato basil chicken.
And the flavor factor makes it impressive enough for a holiday meal or special occasion. Pair with mashed potatoes and a perfectly-cooked ribeye steak, oven-braised short ribs or Cajun butter turkey breast.
More Favorite Leafy Green Recipes
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
I hope you'll enjoy this garlic sauteed spinach recipe soon and very soon. And sharing is caring, so be sure to pin this recipe for later and follow me over on Pinterest. Thanks for reading!
📖 Recipe
Skillet Garlicky Spinach
Equipment
- 1 knife
- 1 garlic press optional
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 4 cloves garlic
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- sea salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
- 5 ounces baby spinach
- ¼ lemon for juice
Instructions
- Add olive oil and butter to skillet over medium-high heat and allow butter to melt.1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon butter
- Meanwhile, use garlic press to press garlic (or mince it finely with knife). Add garlic to skillet along with garlic powder, onion powder, sea salt, and black pepper and cook for one minute.4 cloves garlic, ½ teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon onion powder, sea salt, black pepper
- Add spinach to skillet and stir to coat it in the oils, garlic and spices. Cook until spinach is wilted (about four minutes), stirring regularly.5 ounces baby spinach
- Squeeze lemon juice over top of spinach then toss the spinach to evenly coat it then remove from heat and serve.¼ lemon
Mina says
I just made your Skillet Garlicky Spinach, DELISH! Easy recipe with big flavor! No worries about storage, there wasn't anything left. Used bread to soak up every drop that may have been left in the pan and bowl. I may try this with curly kale.
MK
Jazzmine Woodard says
Thanks for your feedback, Mina! I'm so glad you enjoyed this spinach down to the last drop. And I bet it would be delicious with curly kale.