Spinach is one of the favorite ingre­di­ents for many cooks. Why is it so good and how will it help your body? Find answers to these and many oth­er ques­tions in our arti­cle.

spinach benefits

Spinach is the health­i­est leafy veg­etable that is grad­u­al­ly win­ning the hearts of not only healthy lifestyle fol­low­ers, but also those who just love to eat deli­cious­ly. It per­fect­ly com­ple­ments dish­es, and can also be an excel­lent dye in which case. Read more about the ben­e­fits of spinach below.

Spinach: benefits and harms

Like any oth­er prod­uct, spinach has its own use­ful and not very use­ful prop­er­ties and fea­tures. Uncov­er­ing them all and decid­ing whether or not you can eat spinach is very impor­tant if you want to fol­low a healthy eat­ing pat­tern.

spinach calories

Spinach is a low calo­rie food. There are only 22 kcal in 100 g of spinach. In addi­tion, spinach con­tains:

  • 2.9 g pro­tein
  • 0.3 g fat
  • 2 g carbs

Benefits of spinach

Spinach con­tains vit­a­mins such as: A, B1, B2, B6, C, D2, E, K, PP, R. You can find use­ful min­er­als in spinach leaves. Thanks to this, spinach:

  • pro­motes bow­el func­tion, helps to lose weight;
  • slows down age-relat­ed changes in the ner­vous sys­tem;
  • helps with ane­mia, exhaus­tion, ane­mia, hyper­ten­sion, dia­betes, gas­tri­tis;
  • has a mild lax­a­tive and diuret­ic effect;
  • improves the con­di­tion of the skin, nails and teeth, hair;
  • strength­ens the heart, helps to sleep bet­ter;
  • works as a pre­ven­tive mea­sure against cel­lulite.
spinach at gv

spinach while breastfeeding

For wom­en’s health, spinach is indis­pens­able, but when breast­feed­ing, they should not be abused. The fact is that your body is stronger and more resilient, and it will be dif­fi­cult for a child’s body to cope with a new prod­uct.

Abuse of greens can cause aller­gies, frus­tra­tion, poi­son­ing of the baby.

Eat spinach only from the sec­ond month after the birth of the child, in the morn­ing. Enter into the diet in very small por­tions to fol­low the reac­tion. Give pref­er­ence to spinach that has grown in your gar­den or win­dowsill, or bought from a trust­ed sell­er.

Spinach harm

Spinach should not be eat­en with uri­nary, kid­ney and gall­stone dis­eases, with gout. Also, spinach should be eat­en imme­di­ate­ly after it is plucked, and dish­es from it should be pre­pared so that they can be eat­en in one go. Oth­er­wise, they will lose their fla­vor.

You need to boil spinach twice: the first water should be poured out, nitrates leave with it.

Growing spinach at home

Fresh­ly picked spinach is the health­i­est. That is why it is worth pay­ing atten­tion to the ways of grow­ing greens at home. How to do it? Of course, on the win­dowsill or on the bal­cony.

How to grow spinach on a windowsill

To grow spinach on a win­dowsill, pre­pare:

  • nutri­ent soil (any);
  • land­ing con­tain­ers;
  • drainage.

First you need to fill the drainage and earth in the tank, and then make grooves. Sow spinach seeds pre-pre­pared for plant­i­ng, sprin­kle with earth and moist­en with a spray bot­tle.

Cov­er the con­tain­er with cling film to ensure green­house con­di­tions, and wait for the first shoots with­in a week.

The opti­mum tem­per­a­ture for growth is 15ºС, no more.

how to grow spinach

What to cook with spinach

Do not believe that this sim­ple green­ery can be used to cook some­thing spe­cial and espe­cial­ly tasty? Then check out the recipes. And first of all with the spinach dessert recipe.

spinach cake

Cook­ing time: 1 h 40 min.

For 6–8 serv­ings

For the bis­cuit:

  • 200 g flour
  • 200 g sug­ar
  • 150 g spinach
  • 4 eggs + 2 pro­teins
  • 80 ml veg­etable oil
  • 1 Art. l. lemon peel
  • 2.5 tsp bak­ing pow­der dough

For the fill­ing:

  • 500 g ricot­ta
  • 400 g straw­ber­ries
  • 300 g sour cream
  • 150 g pow­dered sug­ar
  • 1 pinch of vanil­la
spinach cake

Rinse spinach, sort, dry, coarse­ly chop and put in a blender bowl. Add veg­etable oil and lemon zest and puree until smooth.

Divide the eggs into whites and yolks. Add the yolk to the spinach mass, add 50 g of sug­ar and beat well.

Using a mix­er, beat 3 yolks with 80 g of sug­ar until the mass increas­es in vol­ume, mix in the spinach mass and mix until smooth.

In a sep­a­rate bowl, beat 6 pro­teins in a sta­ble foam and add it to the mass with spinach. Sift in flour with bak­ing pow­der and mix gen­tly.

Heat the oven up to 180ºС. Pour the bat­ter into the pre­pared pan and bake for 45 min­utes. Turn off the oven, open the door ajar and let the bis­cuit cool in the oven with the door ajar for 10 min­utes.

Remove the fin­ished bis­cuit from the mold, cool and divide into three cakes.

For cream, grind sour cream with ricot­ta, add pow­dered sug­ar, vanillin and beat until fluffy.

Wash the straw­ber­ries, dry them, remove the stalks, cut each berry into lon­gi­tu­di­nal slices.

Assem­ble the cake by smear­ing the cakes with cream and shift­ing with straw­ber­ries. Dec­o­rate the prod­uct to taste.

Spinach veloute

Cook­ing time: 1 h 30 min.

For 4 serv­ings:

  • 600 g spinach
  • 1–2 pota­to tubers
  • 1/2 onion
  • 1.2 veg­etable broth
  • 2 tbsp. l. heavy cream
  • 80 g of grat­ed parme­san
  • 30 g but­ter
  • salt pep­per

For but­ter­cream:

  • 300 ml cream
  • 6 slices smoked brisket
  • salt pep­per

Pre­pare cream. Fine­ly chop the brisket and fry in a saucepan over high heat for 2 min­utes. Pour in 1/2 cream, salt and pep­per, bring to a boil and boil for 5 min­utes. Puree the but­ter­milk and let cool. Whip the rest of the cream into foam, mix into the creamy mass with the brisket and beat again. Before serv­ing, place the cream in the refrig­er­a­tor.

Wash spinach, sort and pat dry. Peel pota­toes, wash and cut into cubes. Peel the onion, chop it and fry in but­ter in a saucepan for 3 min­utes. Add spinach and cook, stir­ring, 2 min­utes. Pour in the broth, put the pota­toes, bring to a boil and cook, uncov­ered, for 20 min­utes. Add salt and pep­per to taste.

Remove soup from heat and puree. Add cream and heat over medi­um heat for 3 min­utes.

Pour the fin­ished velouté into serv­ing bowls. In each serv­ing put 1–2 tbsp. l. cream and sprin­kle the dish with parme­san.

Spinach salad with boiled egg and crispy chicken breast

Cook­ing time: 1 h 30 min.

For 4 serv­ings:

  • 200 g baby spinach
  • 1 bulb
  • 4 chick­en breasts
  • 6 eggs
  • 100 g bread­crumbs
  • 60 g flour
  • 1 liter veg­etable oil for deep fry­ing
  • salt pep­per

For sauce:

  • 50 ml soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp. l. liq­uid hon­ey
  • 50 ml sun­flower oil

Hard boil 4 eggs, trans­fer them to a bowl of cold water and let cool com­plete­ly.

Pre­pare the sauce. In a small saucepan, com­bine hon­ey with soy sauce, heat and remove from heat. Mix sun­flower oil into a warm mass, add salt and pep­per to taste. Beat the mass with a mix­er and leave at room tem­per­a­ture until serv­ing.

Whisk the remain­ing eggs in a deep plate with a fork, add salt and pep­per to taste. Sprin­kle flour and bread­crumbs in an even lay­er on sep­a­rate flat plates.

Peel the onion and cut into thin half rings. Wash spinach, sort and pat dry. Peel the boiled eggs and cut into halves. Arrange onion and spinach on serv­ing plates and pour over a small amount of sauce. Place two egg halves on each serv­ing.

Rinse chick­en breasts, pat dry and cut into thick strips. Roll the strips of meat in flour, dip in the egg and coat thick­ly in bread­crumbs.

In a saucepan, heat the oil for deep-fry­ing and fry the strips of chick­en breast in por­tions for 4–5 min­utes. Put the fried breast on the sal­ad. Serve the remain­ing sauce in a sep­a­rate bowl.

Do you like spinach?

Pho­to: Unsplash