Spinach Ricotta Bites

By Gigi-licious

Makes 20 bites

Prep Time:5 minutes, Cook Time: 25 minutes, Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 cup ricotta cheese (low or full fat ricotta will work)
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 10 oz pkg frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and drained well (i use my hands to squeeze as much liquid out of the spinach as possible)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Details

Servings 20
Preparation time 5mins
Cooking time 30mins
Adapted from weelicious.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat and cook the onions for 4 minutes until tender.
3. Add the garlic and cook an additional minute then set aside to cool.
4. Whisk eggs in a bowl and stir in ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.
5. Once combined, stir in spinach, salt and cooled onion and garlic mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into lightly greased mini muffin cups.
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the filling is set and golden on top.
8. Serve.

Lucky me that I have a cousin with two growing boys who loves to cook and feed her kids healthy foods. She makes a version of this recipe in a pie dish and has been trying to convince me that her boys absolutely devour it whenever she makes it for them. Although I sometimes find statements like that hard to believe when we're talking about green foods and highly independent little boys, I’m always game for recipes that defy the odds.

I decided to take my cousin’s original recipe, make a few tweaks to the ingredients and then cook them in mini muffin cups instead of a pie dish, because it cooks faster (and after all, what kid doesn't like something mini?). As for my my initial doubts about the kid appeal of this recipe, after watching Kenya repeatedly walk by the cooling rack to grab three of them within 15 minutes and Chloe scarfing down four at dinner, I realized these could be one of the all time greatest kid friendly recipes I've ever made. Delicious, healthy and SO easy to make. My cousin gets total props for this kiddy culinary hit!

Additional comments:

These were so yummy using my fresh goat-milk ricotta! Next time, I’ll try other readers suggestions and add mushrooms to the mix!

Thank you! Made a double batch for a party. Used olive oil instead of butter and added some black pepper and basil. Had to keep my family (and myself) from eating everything before the party. They were much appreciated by some low-carbers and a gluten-intolerant guest. Recipe was easy enough to rattle off to anyone (everyone) who asked.

We are not onion fans at my house. If I left the onions out, do you think I would still need to cook the garlic in melted butter before mixing everything together?


I make these in double batches, freeze and reheat a few at a time. To defrost I usually just put them in the oven for a few minutes while I’m reheating it for another purpose.


I don’t think much would change if you added 1/2 a cup of chopped turkey bacon