Macaroni with Cheese is the ultimate comfort food, but it can get a little boring. So, when I saw a hundred-year-old recipe that called for adding spinach I decided to give it a try.
The Macaroni with Spinach was tasty – though not creamy like most modern Mac and Cheese recipes. It was not creamy because the old recipe did not call for adding any milk. Because of the lack of liquids, I needed to use care when baking this dish to ensure that the macaroni did not dry out and get hard. I covered the baking dish for most of the time it was in the oven and then removed the cover for the last few minutes to crisp the bread crumb topping.
I had some leftovers when I made this recipe which I carefully put in another dish. I added some milk before reheating which helped keep the macaroni moist.
Here is the original recipe:
Spinach cooks down a great deal, but two pounds of fresh spinach seemed like a lot of spinach when the recipe only called for 1/2 pound of macaroni (about 2 cups of dry macaroni). One pound of spinach would be plenty. When I made this recipe I substituted a 12-ounce bag of frozen spinach for the fresh spinach. I am not sure why the recipe author called for pressing the spinach through a colander after it was cooked. I tried to do this. (Actually, I pressed it through a Foley mill.) I ended up with a small amount of puree and lots of spinach that wouldn’t go through. I ended up finely chopping the spinach that didn’t go through the mesh and stirring it into the puree. This worked fine, but I realized that if I was going to use all the parts of the spinach that I didn’t need to press it through a colander or Foley mill so I revised the recipe to just indicate that the spinach should be finely chopped.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Macaroni with Spinach
1 pound fresh spinach (or 1 12-ounce bag frozen chopped spinach)
2 cups macaroni
2 cups grated cheese (I used cheddar.)
approximately 1/2 cup fine breadcrumbs (I grated 1 slice of bread.)
1 tablespoon butter
hard-boiled egg for garnish (optional)
tomato slices for garnish (optional)
Preheat oven to 375◦ F. Wash spinach then put in a large skillet and sauté using medium heat with just the water that clings to the leaves until it wilts. Remove from heat and finely chop. (Alternatively use frozen chopped spinach that has been thawed.)
In the meantime, cook the macaroni following package instructions.
Also, in a small skillet melt the butter. Add the breadcrumbs and stir. Cook until the bread crumbs are just beginning to brown while stirring occasionally (about two minutes).
To assemble the dish put one half of the cooked macaroni in a baking dish. (An 8 X 8 dish or a 1 1/12 quart dish works well). Then put a layer containing one half of the chopped spinach on top of the macaroni. Next add a layer containing one-half of the grated cheese. Repeat the layers with the remainder of the macaroni, spinach, and cheese. Top with the buttered breadcrumbs.
Cover and put in the oven. Bake until hot (about 30-40 minutes.) Remove the lid for the last 10 minutes so that the breadcrumbs will be crispy.
Remove from oven and (if desired) garnish with hard-boiled egg slices and tomato slices.
It sounds good! I think your instincts were correct as the older recipes can be confusing. I think most likely ‘press through a colander’ probably simply meant put the spinach in a colander and press out the water.
I too sort of gasped at the idea of two pounds of spinach!
I think that you’re right. It makes a lot more sense to put the spinach in a colander and press out the water than to actually try to press the spinach through the holes.
Then again, maybe that’s why they needed two pounds!
That also crossed my mind – though if the recipe author’s goal was to make a spinach puree, I couldn’t figure out why the puree wasn’t just stirred into the macaroni rather than it being a separate layer.
It’s a little puzzle for sure.
This intrigued me! I will follow you and your recipes. We lost touch.
Welcome back. It’s nice to hear that you enjoyed this post.
For some reason I start to get hungry for spinach this time of year and this looks pretty dang good. I also think the colander was just to drain out the liquid…
I think that you’re right that the colander is just used to drain out the liquid after cooking the spinach. After eating too many sweets over the holidays, I find that I crave healthier foods in January.
I would never think to combine macaroni with spinach!
It works well.
Looks very festive:)
I had fun trying to figure out how to follow the old recipe’s directions to “garnish with slices of hard-cooked egg and sliced tomatoes.” 🙂
It turned out well!
oh yes it does sound like it would be quite dry!
sherry
It was tasty, but definitely not creamy like Mac and Cheese.