Side dishes · Vegetable sides

Creamed spinach

Name: Creamed spinach
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 1/2 lb baby spinach; 2 tbsp butter; 1/2 yellow onions, diced fine; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 2 tbsp all-purpose flour; 3/4 cup whole milk; 1/3 cup heavy cream; 1/3 cup grated parmesan; 3/4 tsp salt; a scrape nutmeg

The steakhouse side, made in fifteen minutes: a mountain of spinach cooked down into a garlic cream sauce. Two pounds of greens vanish into four servings.

Time: 25 min (10 prep + 15 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 253 kcal
Protein: 10 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb baby spinach700 g
2 tbsp butter30 g
1/2 yellow onions, diced fine80 g
3 cloves garlic, minced10 g
2 tbsp all-purpose flour15 g
3/4 cup whole milk180 g
1/3 cup heavy cream80 g
1/3 cup grated parmesan30 g
3/4 tsp salt4 g
a scrape nutmeg1 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Wilt the spinach in batches in a dry hot pan, then squeeze it hard in a towel. Skipping the squeeze is how creamed spinach becomes spinach soup.
Soften the onion in the butter, add garlic, then the flour for a minute.
Whisk in the milk and cream and simmer to a thick sauce.
Chop the squeezed spinach, fold it in with the parmesan, salt and nutmeg, and warm through.

Why this score

easy to overeat

Dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

16% of kcal

71% water

13 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1011 kcal goes into the pot, 1130 g of ingredients comes out as ~600 g of food → 169 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 169
Protein: (16%); 7 g
Fat: (64%); 12 g
Carbohydrates: (21%); 9 g
of which sugar: 3 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 523 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

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Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.