Greek Rice with Spinach

This greek rice with spinach dish is adapted from a recipe on A Family Feast blog.   I was making our greek lamb meatballs dish for the first time and it suggested serving them as part of a meze platter, with cooked rice or a greek salad.   I decided I fancied some rice, but didn’t want to just have plain basmati rice, so I googled ‘greek rice’ and looked at a few of the search results that came up.   The recipe on A Family Feast really appealed as it had spinach in it and I had a bag of freshly picked spinach in the fridge from our garden.   I had all of the other ingredients too, but didn’t have fresh dill, so used dried dill instead.   The rice was a winner and will definitely be made again and again.

We had it along with the our greek lamb meatballs, best basic houmous, a bowl of salad leaves and spring onions from our garden with baby tomatoes and cucumber chopped through it and toasted multi seeded flatbreads from Asda.   There was 3 of us for dinner, but I managed to save a portion of the rice and meatballs, along with some humous for lunch the next day!

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 125g onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• zest from one lemon
• 0.5 tsp ground cumin
• 225g baby spinach, roughly chopped
• 250g basmati rice
• 500ml vegetable stock
• 2 tsp dried dill, plus extra to garnish
• 0.5 tsp salt
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• juice from one lemon

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil in a medium sauce pan over a medium high heat. Sauté the onions until translucent (about 5 to 7 minutes).  Add the garlic and sauté for another minute.
2. Add the lemon zest, cumin and spinach and cover the pan. Cook until the spinach wilts down (about 3 to 5 minutes).
3. Add the rice, vegetable stock, dried dill, salt and pepper into the spinach mixture and stir to combine. Bring to a boil.
4. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook until the rice is tender (about 10 minutes – follow the cooking instructions on the packet).
5. Stir in the lemon juice and sprinkle with some dried dill.

Greek Rice with Spinach

Deborah

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Prep Time 15 mins

Cook Time 22 mins

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

  

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 125g onion finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove crushed
• zest from one lemon
• 0.5 tsp ground cumin
• 225g baby spinach roughly chopped
• 250g basmati rice
• 500ml vegetable stock
• 2 tsp dried dill plus extra to garnish
• 0.5 tsp salt
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• juice from one lemon

Instructions

 

• Heat the olive oil in a medium sauce pan over a medium high heat. Sauté the onions until translucent (about 5 to 7 minutes).  Add the garlic and sauté for another minute.
• Add the lemon zest, cumin and spinach and cover the pan. Cook until the spinach wilts down (about 3 to 5 minutes).
• Add the rice, vegetable stock, dried dill, salt and pepper into the spinach mixture and stir to combine. Bring to a boil.
• Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook until the rice is tender (about 10 minutes – follow the cooking instructions on the packet).
• Stir in the lemon juice and sprinkle with some dried dill.

Notes

• We enjoyed the rice with a bowl of fresh salad and toasted multi seeded flatbreads from Asda along with our:
  • greek lamb meatballs
  • best basic houmous