This easy spinach feta dip is easy to whip up from some fresh spinach, feta, butter beans, roasted cashew nuts and dill! The end result is a vibrant green, intensely flavorful and savory dip. Perfect for mopping up with a piece of crusty bread!
Green Desire
The first asparagus have emerged to our local grocery store, snow is melting at an accelerating speed and although some days my nose is still about to freeze off, spring is clearly in the air. A year with a global pandemic has seriously mixed up my sense of time. I have to pinch myself to remember it’s actually the end of March by now! If I want to publish all the wintry recipes drafts of the cold season, i better start hurrying up… But, it’s getting harder by the day to feel excited about all the hearty filling comfort foods. All my heart desires is something fresh, bright and green!
Spinach feta dip
The inspiration for my green dip today comes from Greek cuisine – the combination of spinach and feta in particular. With the growing desire for all things green I have combined feta and spinach in this dip! Don’t be fooled by the color however. This dip is very much a hearty and filling concoction, full of protein and fat 😀 It’s a kind of compromise for this weird season when my mind is already in warmer sun filled days … But my body’s still stuck here in the freezing cold.
I’ve seasoned the dip with fresh dill, which I am only getting used to incorporating in my cooking in a larger scale. Dill has a very overpowering flavor in my opinion, so I like to keep it minimal! If you are a fan of dill, go right ahead and add as much as you like! 🙂 When the spring really arrives Finland, I’ll be adding wild foods to this dip. Fresh new nettles, garlic mustard, maybe a few spruce shoots as well!
Spinach feta dip
Equipment
- Immersion blender / blender
Ingredients
- 75 g fresh spinach (you can substitute part with young fresh nettles, garlic mustard, wild garlic...)
- 1-2 cloves of garlic
- ½ lemon, juiced
- 1-2 sprigs dill
- 50 g roasted salted cashew nuts
- ½ dl extra virgin olive oil
- 100 g feta
- 200 g butter beans (cooked)
- ½-¾ dl water
- salt to taste
- freshly cracked black pepper to taste
To serve:
- 2-3 tbsp roasted salted cashews (ground)
- 2-3 tbsp feta (crumbled)
- 1-2 sprigs dill
- 1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp chiliflakes (Aleppo pepper / Pul Biber)
- salt flakes (to taste)
Notes:
- If you are a big fan of dill, go right ahead and add as much as you like!
- Choose a really good quality feta and olive oil for this dip.
- When the nettle season begins, I like to substitute part of the spinach with young nettles quickly blanched in boiling water. Garlic mustard and wild garlic are super good additions in this dip too!
Instructions
Preparation:
- Peel and slice the garlic cloves. Put them into a bowl fit for an immersion blender / into a blender and pour over the juice of half a lemon. Add a sprinkle of salt (½ tsp) and leave the garlic to soak while you prepare the other ingredients.
- Remove the thick stems of spinach leaves and wash the spinach well. Bring to a boil a pot of water and quickly blanch the spinach - just enough for it to wilt (1-2 minutes). Cool down the spinach with cold water and drain well, squeezing out all the liquid.
- Rinse and drain the butter beans and crumble the feta to smaller pieces (leaving some for serving!)
Making the dip:
- Blend the garlic to as fine of a paste as you can. Add in the spinach, butter beans, cashew nuts, olive oil, feta and a few sprigs of fresh dill. Blend as smooth as you can, adding water a splash at a time to loosen the consistency enough to blend. I personally aim for hummus like consistency!
- Season the dip to taste with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Cover the dip and put it in the fridge so the flavors have a chance to develop before serving. Let the dip come back up to room temperature when you serve it!
- Serve the spinach feta dip topped with crumbled feta, crushed roasted cashew nuts, a good glug of extra virgin olive oil, flakey salt, chili flakes and some fresh dill!
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