Spanakopita. The golden, flaky Greek spinach and feta pie. Let’s learn how to cook it!
It might look impressive, but it’s actually really simple to make at home. In this video, I’ll break it down step by step so every home cook can master it.
I will cover:
How to handle filo pastry without fear
The secret to a flavour-packed spinach & feta filling
How to avoid a soggy bottom
Tips for prepping ahead & freezing
I’ve been a chef for 20 years, and my goal is to help home cooks like you create delicious, approachable recipes at home.
Enjoy this Spanakopita with a salad, as part of a mezze spread, or just on its own.
It’s a showstopper either way.
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Here is the recipe:
https://www.disheswithdel.com/blog/spanakopita-greek-spinach-pie
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Here are the timestamps
00:00 Introduction
01:52 The Spinach
02:50 Chef Tip
03:11 What Goes In The Filling
04:31 Alternatives to Replace Other Ingredients
06:25 Chef Tip
07:39 How to Make Your Pastry Crisp
08:39 Chef Tip
09:28 How to Assemble
13:46 THE CRUNCH!
Today we are making spanacopa. That
delicious spinach pie with a million felo layers. I know that felo pastry can seem
intimidating, but I’m going to show you step by step how to make this glorious pie
and achieve all them perfect individual layers on this amazing spanicopter. It’s
simple and easy and totally achievable for any home cook like you to make. And the
best part, you can make it now, freeze it, and cook it when you need something
fab. So, let’s get into Spanacopter. Perfection. [Music] Now, spanopita. You do not know how many times I
had to practice saying that without messing it up, but we got there. Anyway, in the spanot spanotapa
a pan a spanocot a spanacot a spanacotapa. Oh, let’s make it a super simple, easy, delicious
pie. Vegetarian friendly. And honestly, it looks like you’ve put in loads of effort. And we know
here at Dishes with Dell, I’m all about well, minimal effort. No, that I mean, maybe that’s a
little bit of a lie. You’ve got to put love into whatever you make, but it doesn’t always
have to take you hours on end. You know, the truth is about this dish is that it’s
comforting and it feels decadent. And we’re coming into spring here in New Zealand and it just
feels like nice and fresh and like you want to eat it with a salad. So, make sure you stick around
to the end to master how to make this crispy, golden, and delicious. And don’t worry
if you’ve never used Felo before. I’m going to make it simple and easy to
show you. So, let’s get into this. So, first up, we’ve got the spinach. As you can
see here, I’ve got frozen blocks. This can often be the problem if you’re a home cook reading
a recipe. It will say fresh spinach and you’re unsure, can I use frozen? Yes, you can. But all
you need to do is defrost it in the microwave and squeeze all the living daylights out of it
so that you’ve got a dry product which then you can add all the rest of the stuff to. So, let’s
get this defrosted and into the bowl. Here’s my 100-year-old uh microwave, but he’s okay. He does
the job. Okay, spinach defrosted. We’re going to squeeze all the water out of it. I mean, look at
it. so much water. And this is not what you want in a pie that you want to be crispy. So, make sure
it’s all gone. If you was using fresh finish to make this pie, what you would want to do is cut it
all up and season it with salt. And effectively, the same thing is going to happen. All the
moisture is going to get drawn out of it so that you end up with dry. If you’re looking
for the recipe, it’s on my website. It’s in the description box down below. Click on the link
and you’ll find everything you need. Next, for this spinach pie, we need some onion. So, again,
recipes, you can read them. They’ll say maybe spring onion, maybe white onion, but honestly,
just so long as you’ve got some onion, it doesn’t really matter. This is the thing I think as
home cooks and me coming from a professional standpoint, of course, these things have subtle
nuances that make things taste oh so different. But when you’re cooking at home for a family,
no one’s really going to notice. So if you don’t have spring onions and it says spring onions in
this recipe that you read for making this and you don’t have them, don’t go buy them. You don’t need
to. Just chop up, in my case for this one, half a regular onion. So we’ll chop that up and get it
in. In that goes. And now for the other parts of the filling. As I said, many recipes will call for
lots of herbs. Now here in New Zealand, very hard to come by. Let’s say dill in the supermarket.
Also, it’s extortionate for such a small amount. And dill dried, fantastic. So, we’re going to
add two good tablespoons of that to compensate for the fact that we haven’t got any fresh stuff.
It still tastes absolutely incredible. And we’ll give that herby fresh flavor. Give that all just
a little mix together. And next up, often again, recipes call for ricotta. ricotta expensive. You
know what? You might have some thick Greek yogurt that’s unsweetened in the fridge. All you want is
for that texture to be something that combined it all together. We’re going to add an egg in here,
too. But this is just about making it all a little bit looser and giving it all that little bit
of a softer texture because otherwise it can be very dry if you’re just using the spinach. So,
we’re going to add in two tablespoons of that. And you know what else would be a really great
alternative for this? Cottage cheese. In fact, we’re going to go three. Cottage cheese would
be a great addition to this recipe if you didn’t have either of the others. Now, feta, this
is obviously one of the most important parts. It’s the thing that makes you feel like you’re on
holiday when you’re actually not. But without it, this would not be this wonderful Greek pie.
So, just break it in gently. You don’t really want to break it up because you’re going
to give this a mix in a second anyway, which will slightly slightly break it up anyway.
And those slightly larger chunks will mean that there’s little pockets of extra saltiness.
Oh my god, this is going to be yum. So now, can you see here what I mean? That yogurt has
just provided a little bit of kind of moisture to bind all the things together so that we don’t have
totally dry spinach that just kind of falls apart when you cut it, but gives it all a little bit
of texture. So, what I would say here is a great time to give it a taste because obviously that
feta is salty and we want to see how salty it is. It’s already tasting delicious. I’m probably just
going to add in this last bit of the feta. So, that’s 200 gone in because why not? But the
reason I said taste it then is because we need to give it a season. And obviously, if you’ve got
really salty feta, you don’t want to add a lot of seasoning. So, keep that in mind. You can always
give it a quick season and mix. Taste it again and see if it’s where you like it. Or you can just
go for it, which is probably what I’m going to do because I know roughly that I want sort of a teaspoon of salt in there. And then
finally, plenty of black pepper. And when you think you’ve got enough in there,
add a little bit more. And then finally, just crack in that egg and give it a good
mix. And so that’s why you wanted to taste it before because obviously now it’s got the egg
in there. A little bit difficult to taste. But simple. That’s our mix. I mean, how good does that
look? Now, let’s move on to the filo, which is the one little sticky point of this dish where lots
of people seem to worry. So, I’m going to show you an easy way to make sure that it stays moist
while you get it ready and crisp when you cook it. So to the felo. The most important thing about
felo pastry is that when you’re putting it into the dish that you are keeping it lubricated.
We need butter and we need oil. You can do it whichever way you like, but I like to do a little
blend of the two. So, I’m going to pop some butter in here with some oil and warm it up so that it’s
loose and we can paint it on. So, I’ll get that going first and then we’ll sort out the filo.
And I know it looks like a lot, but trust me, you’re going to need it. This, after all, is what
makes this dish so delicious and crisp. And a little gug of olive oil. And on it goes to melt.
So felo, it is delicate and it can easily break, but that is because it dries out. So what you
want to do is when you’re using this, we’re going to take it out of the packet and we’re going to
unroll it and we are going to have to work fast. But what you do while that is sitting there, take
a slightly damp tea towel and sit it over the top so that none of them layers dry out. Meaning if
you’re working a little bit slower, it’s okay and not the end of the world. So, now we need to
get our dish and we’ll start painting on the butter and oil. And we’re going to do about seven
layers on the bottom. If you have too little, the bottom will fall out when you serve it up.
And if you have too many, it won’t cook. So, about seven is just about right. And quickly, you always
want to make sure that the felo will fit in your dish. I know that this looks large, but it’s good
to bake in and it’s got nice high sides, so I can build it up, but also fold it down. And so this
will fit perfectly with this piece of felo. So one at a time you paint away. Peel one off. Cover
this back up and paint. Make sure you cover every inch. I also just sit a piece of greaseroof paper
on the bottom just in case it wants to stick. So, now we’re going to start layering this in.
The first one I’m going to go grease side down. Stack it up the edges. Paint this again.
Can you see why I’m going to use so much butter and oil now? You want to
make sure it’s everywhere. Make sure you’ve only got one. These
are very easy to stick together. and repeat. And the good thing is here, you
can see where you’ve got the oil on there. You can now easily stick that other piece of felo to
itself. If you’re looking for a way to make these snack size, I actually did a short on it ages ago.
I’ve added the link to my short actually just up at the top of the video here. Go have a watch at
that. And it’s a great way to make this wonderful, wonderful pie in the air fryer, snack size.
And there we go. That’s our bottom done. Now, we’re going to add in the mix. And you know,
the thing is with the um with building all these layers is that you need to build them up
for structural integrity. And then we’re just going to spread this out. the joy of doing it
in such a large pan like this. We’re going to end up with more a a spanacopa a spanacopa
pie but almost a slice but still absolutely delicious nonetheless. If you doubled this
filling recipe then it would be a big deep thick pie but that also comes at a cost and I know
that sometimes we just can’t budget for that. So, this is a fantastic alternative. It’s still
going to be absolutely delicious and I can’t wait to eat it. So, while I get this last
lot done, I’m going to turn the oven on to 175 so it’s nice and hot and ready for this
to go in when all the top is finished. So, now let’s just repeat the top each layer as
before. And if your kitchen is a little bit cold and it starts to get a little bit solid,
just pop it back on and give it a quick melt. A great thing about this pie is that you
can make it in advance and freeze it. So if you had an abundance of spinach,
a bumper spring crop of spinach, you can make one of these and quite happily
keep it in the freezer for at least 3 months. And then finally that last layer on top. And
what I do now is I’m just going to fold all the edges from the very bottom so that we get
a nice neat edge with all that felo. And give it a final butter. Make sure everything is
coated. And the final thing I like to do is cut it up into already portions because what
that means is that through these little holes, the extra steam can escape, meaning you end up
with extra crispy pie and making it super easy at the table to make sure that people aren’t
fighting over it and everyone gets the same size piece. And it goes to the oven at 175
for about 45 minutes. And I’ll see you then. Y time has gone off. Let’s get this bad boy out. [Music] Oh my god. It’s had
a minute or two cooling. Let’s get into it. [Music] Oh my god.
Crisp perfection. I mean, just look at all these layers. That is what when you butter in
between each single one, this is what happens. If you’ve enjoyed this video, let me know in the
comments section down below. Give me a like, give me a subscribe, but otherwise just let me
know if you make this incredible pie. [Music] Oh, crisp layers. Oh my god, they’re so good.
That incredible cheesy herby filling. You couldn’t ask for much more. M. M. Every single layer is
crisp, delicious, and just freaking top notch. Oh my god. Make sure that you try this recipe. If
you’re a struggling home cook who never knows what to make and you want to impress your friends,
well, this is the bloody dish to do it. Simple, but elegant and just so goddamn tasty. 50 minutes
in the oven. Golden brown delicious pie all perfectly portioned up and ready to go. I’m going
to finish this off because I’ve been filming all day and this is delicious. But I will see you all
next week. I love you all and I’ll see you soon. Oh, so crisp. It’s just so crisp.
It is just so crisp. Yeah. See you.
1 Comment
Have you ever made it? If so did it even look so crispy and layered up like this?