17 August 2026
Garlic Sautéed Spinach with Chilli, Lemon and Toasted Pine Nuts
Dave Moorkens— Stacked Farm Chef
Garlic Sautéed Spinach with Chilli, Lemon and Toasted Pine Nuts.
Serves 2 as a side · Ready in 10 minutes.
Almost everyone has cooked spinach badly at some point and ended up with a grey, watery pile in the bottom of the pan. It's a two minute job done properly, and the difference is mostly about heat, timing and when you add the lemon.
This version keeps things simple. Sliced garlic and chilli in good olive oil, spinach in for barely a minute, then lemon and toasted pine nuts at the end.
Chef's tip on cooking perfect spinach — Use a wide pan and keep the heat at medium, because if the garlic colours it turns bitter and there's nowhere for that to hide in a dish this simple. Add the spinach in handfuls if you need to. It looks like an enormous amount going in and it'll cook down to almost nothing, which surprises people every time. And start with dry leaves. Wet spinach steams instead of sautéing and you end up boiling it in its own water.
Dave Moorkens — Stacked Farm Chef
Ingredients
- 250g Stacked Farm Baby Spinach
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, sliced
- Pinch of chilli flakes
- Half a lemon, juiced
- 1 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
Method
- Heat the olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat and add the garlic and chilli. Let them soften and turn fragrant without colouring.
- Add the spinach, a handful at a time if the pan won't take it all at once, and toss it for a minute or two until it's only just wilted.
- Take the pan off the heat, then add the lemon juice and season.
- Scatter over the toasted pine nuts and serve straight away.
Chef's tip: Add the lemon at the very end, off the heat. Acid and heat together will strip the colour right out of a green vegetable and turn it a sad olive drab, so if you squeeze it in while the pan's still going you'll wonder why your spinach looks like it's been sitting in a bain-marie all afternoon. Off the heat, then lemon. It stays green and it tastes brighter too.
Dave Moorkens — Stacked Farm Chef
Why it works
Spinach on its own is soft and a bit flat, so everything else here is a counterweight. The garlic gives it depth, the chilli gives it a bit of heat, the lemon lifts it, and the pine nuts are the only crunch on the plate. Take any one of those out and it stops being interesting.
Make it yours
Toasted almonds or walnuts do the same job as pine nuts for a lot less money. A spoonful of ricotta or a crumble of feta turns it from a side into a light lunch on toast, and a tin of drained cannellini beans warmed through with the garlic makes it a proper dinner.
Dry leaves sauté. Wet leaves steam.
This is a dish where the state of the leaf genuinely matters. Our baby spinach is grown indoors without pesticides and never washed, so it comes out of the pack clean and dry and goes straight into the pan. No rinsing, no salad spinner, and no water clinging to the leaves turning your sauté into a simmer.
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FAQs
Keep the heat at medium, use a wide pan, and take it off after a minute or two, as soon as it's just wilted. Slimy spinach is almost always overcooked spinach.
Either it cooked too long, or acid went in too early. Lemon juice and heat together break down the green, so add the lemon off the heat at the end.
Far more than you'd think, because it collapses dramatically. Around 125g of raw baby spinach per person makes a modest side, so a 250g pack serves two.
Not really. Frozen spinach is already cooked and holds a lot of water, so you'll get something closer to creamed spinach without the cream. This dish depends on fresh leaves hitting a hot pan.
About 60g, which is one standard pack.
No. Stacked Farm baby spinach is grown indoors without pesticides and never washed, so it's ready to cook or eat straight from the pack.
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