A tasty Spinach sauté for Tacos
Pairing this spinach sauté with taco shells was an unintended twist. Ricky loves spinach and uses it often in his cooking. The mild flavor of fresh spinach is a great pallet to build on. In this dinner recipe he uses ham and olives to add briny, saltiness and melts mozzarella cheese into the mixture. He usually uses a wrap for this spinach filling, but when we were making this together for this post, neither of us had picked up wraps. Plan B: Taco shells that were in my kitchen cabinet. We tried it, they were great. The corn tortilla is a perfect complement to the spinach filling. It adds flavor and texture. Ricky liked the sauté in the taco shell even better than a wrap. Whether you choose to use wraps, tortillas, taco shells or eat it as is, we hope you enjoy this easy to make spinach filling.
Spinach is one of the foods commonly seen at the top of lists of healthy foods. It‘s said that the deeper the color in a fruit or vegetable, the more nutritional value it has. The dark green leaves of spinach are packed with stuff your body likes.
Many cultures have embraced the use of green leafy vegetables as a main ingredient in cooking, and there’s plenty of green leafy vegetables to choose from. But many of us don’t have the slightest idea what to do with them. Such is my plight. Ricky, on the other hand, was raised on a Mediterranean diet and is accustomed to using vegetables and/or dried beans as a main course. We have posted his all vegetable filling for wraps SAUTEED VEGETABLE MEDELY FOR WRAPS using escarole, another green leafy vegetable. While I have little to no background in cooking leafy greens as a main course, I do know what tastes good, and this sauté served in a taco shell tastes great.
Just like our other recipes, Spinach sauté is made with a few common ingredients and it’s quick and easy.
Here’s what YOU WILL NEED:
| 16 ounces of spinach |
| 4 fresh garlic cloves |
| 1/4 pound sliced ham |
| 1 cup dark olives, pitted kalamata or black |
| 8 ounce ball of fresh mozzarella cheese |
| olive oil for sautéing |
| 8 taco shells (or tortillas or wraps) |
About the ingredients
You can use either kalamata olives or black olives in this sauté. Either one adds a briny bite of flavor.
We are using an 8 ounce ball of fresh mozzarella cheese, it works best in this recipe. The cheese is going to melt into the sauté as an ingredient, it’s not used as a topping. It will form little clumps of cheese that will run through the mixture, so you can get some in every bite. At the grocery store, you will find a fresh mozzarella ball in the cold chest with other specialty cheeses.
Use a sliced ham of your choice. Or, if you have some leftover ham, this would be a great way to use it. Just dice it up. Ham adds a smoky taste throughout the mixture.
The spinach leaves we have pictured, was sold in sealed 8 ounce bags. You can also get spinach leaves in a clear plastic clamshell containers. They are young leaves. If you go to the refrigerated section where you find fresh unpackaged leafy green vegetables, the spinach leaves are larger and darker. A lot of people shy away from using fresh spinach that has not been pre-washed. The leaves have lots of deep crevices that shelter dirt. The large spinach leaves need to be soaked (usually more than once) and rinsed very well to get all that dirt out.
This is WHAT TO DO:
Finely chop (mince) the garlic cloves
Cut the olives in half or in slices
Cut the mozzarella in strips
Cut ham into bite sized pieces
Chop the ham and olives in fairly small pieces. Finely mince the garlic cloves. Taco shells don’t have a lot of room to fill, so you want a mix of all the ingredients in every bite.
Time to Cook
Use a 12 inch or larger skillet. You need plenty of room to add the raw spinach.
Heat the skillet on medium heat for a minute or so, then cover the bottom with olive oil and add the garlic.
In a large skillet on medium heat, cover bottom with olive oil and when the oil is warm, add garlic. Let the garlic get warm in the oil, but do not brown. The goal is to infuse the oil with the flavor of garlic, not to cook the garlic.
Put as much of the spinach in the skillet as you can fit. If you don’t have enough room for all you have, just let what is in the skillet wilt down and then add the rest when you have room. It will only take minutes. Stir frequently as you are sautéing, so the spinach cooks evenly.
Continue stirring to get all the spinach leaves evenly cooked. This is what it will look like when all the spinach has wilted down. Cook for about 5 minutes until most of the moisture that has seeped out of the leaves has evaporated from the skillet.
Add the chopped ham, olives and cut mozzarella. Cook for another 5 minutes until the ham is warm and the mozzarella is melted. The mixture will be done, from start to finish, in 15-20 minutes at the most.
This is what the sauté looks like when it is done. Notice the moisture that is pooling around the edges of the skillet. That’s the moisture left over from melting the mozzarella. With a slotted spoon, scoop the sauté out of the skillet and put it in a serving bowl.
SPINACH SAUTE FOR TACOS
Ingredients
- 16 ounces spinach 1 pound
- 4 garlic cloves
- ¼ pound ham sliced or diced
- 1 cup olives pitted black or kalamata olives
- 8 ounces mozzarella cheese fresh in ball shape or log
- olive oil for sautéing
- 8 taco shells or tortillas or wraps
Instructions
Prepare Ingredients
- Cut mozzarella cheese into strips. Chop up ham.
- Cut the olives in half or slices.
- Chop up ham.
- Mince fresh garlic cloves.
Cooking Instructions
- Warm a large skillet on medium heat. When warm, add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the skillet. Add minced garlic and stir until oil and garlic are warm, about 1 or 2 minutes. Do not brown the garlic.
- Add spinach to the skillet and let it wilt down. As it is wilting, stir frequently to cook the spinach leaves evenly. You may need to wait for some of the leaves to wilt before being able to get all the leaves in the skillet. Don't let the big pile of leaves fool you. There's a lot of water in those leaves that evaporates out and leaves a much smaller amount of cooked spinach than you would imagine.
- When all the leaves are wilted, cook for an additional 5 minutes, still on medium heat. Continue to stir frequently.
- Add the ham, olives and mozzarella cheese to the spinach mixture. Keep stirring. Cook for another 5 minutes to warm the olives and ham and melt the cheese.
- With a slotted spoon, scoop the spinach mixture into a serving bowl.
- Prepare the taco shells, tortillas or wraps and spoon in spinach sauté. Serve.