Spanakorizo (Σπανακόρυζο)
The main ingredients of this classic Greek dish are spinach and rice. Cooked together with green onions, parsley, olive oil and tomato sauce this is a meal that is satisfying and healthy.
Growing up in a Greek home with parents who immigrated to Canada from Greece with little means, and even less support, it was common for them to prepare meals which were simple, and economical. Staples includes bean soups like Fasolatha, vegetable mains like Briam and homemade breads.
Recipes like this spanakorizo were also often made. When the groceries were almost done, having meals that could be prepared with only a few ingredients was key. One pot, a few basic ingredients, and you are good to go!
Why I love this recipe
Spanakorizo is a great Greek meal. It is not necessarily something that you will find on a Greek restaurant’s menu, but I think it should be! It represents so much of what is great about Greek cooking: simple ingredients, straightforward technique and amazing results.
The slow cooking of the spinach has it turn luxurious. That is the best way I have to describe it! The sauce ends up being rich and flavourful – perfect for soaking up with a hunk (yes, I mean hunk) of bread.
This is a perfect vegan meal. It is just great as it is, but if you are eating dairy, consider serving spanakorizo with some feta either on the side, or crumbled on top.
Key ingredients
Spinach Any variety of spinach will work fine. When I use baby spinach I don’t even chop it up.
Rice I use white long grain rice to make spanakorizo.
Olive oil I always use Greek olive oil in this recipe. I love the flavour and aroma.
Tomato sauce When I can I always use homemade tomato sauce. When I don’t have it available then I turn to a good quality passata or strained tomato.
Parsley I use flat leaf parsley that I chop up well and rinse thoroughly. I avoid using the tough stems.
Spring onions Also called green onion these mild flavoured onions are great in spanakorizo. I use the white and green part.
Water Regular tap water works just fine here.
Salt & pepper Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Lemon juice A squirt of fresh lemon juice helps to bring all the flavours together.
How to make
Preparation
- Rinse your rice in cold water and set aside. You can also soak it in cold water if you have time. Drain and rinse before using.
- Chop your spinach and your parsley and rinse it well.
Instructions
Step 1
Heat the olive oil in a large pot and sauté the spring onions for 2 – 3 minutes, stirring constantly so that they do not burn. To the pot add the spinach and the parsley. It may appear that there is too much spinach for the pot, but as it heats it will wilt and decrease in volume. Add rice on top of the spinach.
Step 2
Add water and tomato sauce to the pot. Cover and cook over medium heat for approximately 30 minutes. After 30 minutes check to see how much liquid is in the pot, and test to see if the rice is cooked. If the spanakorizo appears too watery continue to cook, uncovered, for a few minutes. Remove from the heat, and let sit a few minutes before serving; The longer it sits, the more it will thicken up. Season with salt and pepper if desired, and freshly squeezed lemon juice.
Cooking tips and helpful hints
Where to get your spinach
When the snow is gone and the weather is warm, my parents plant and then tend to their bountiful garden. One of the most amazing things that my parents grow is spinach; wonderful not only because it is so good for us, but also because once cut, it grows back! An endless (almost) supply of fresh, organic, deliciousness.
Buying spinach
Of course, if you don’t have spinach growing in your garden, you can use what you find in the market. Try to select spinach which looks fresh, is not wilted and does not have any brown or yellow leaves. If you do find the occasional spoiled leaf, just remove it.
Preparing your spinach
When my parents use their own fresh spinach they do not remove the stem as it is quite tender. If, however, you find that store bought spinach leaves have tough stems, take the extra bit of time to cut them off, particularly if you will be serving this meal to young kids. There is nothing inherently wrong with the stem, and they are perfectly fine to eat, but they might be a little too tough for little mouths.
How to wash your spinach
Wash your spinach thoroughly by filling a large bowl with water, dunking the spinach in it and swirling it around, a bit at a time. Do this a few times, with a fresh bowl of water each time, until the water in the bowl is clean and does not have any dirt or grit.
Spinach shrinks!
When you see the amount of spinach you need for this recipe your first reaction might be, “That’s a LOT of spinach”, and then you may worry that you don’t have a pot large enough to cook it in. But spinach, like most other greens, wilts quite a bit when cooked, and you go from thinking, “That’s a LOT of spinach” to “Where the heck is the spinach?”
Use the best quality tomato sauce available
My parents make spanakorizo with their own bottled tomato sauce. If you don’t make your own tomato sauce, you can use a good quality tomato juice or passata. Your choice may affect the colour of your spanakorizo (the passata may result in a redder meal than the tomato juice), but either is really fine. Don’t worry about it too much.
The story behind this recipe
If we were to assign a relationship status to each of our parents’ recipes, the one for spanakorizo would definitely read “it’s complicated”. You see, as children, my brother, sister and I hated this dish almost as much as we love it now. And we didn’t just, not like it…no. The mention of spanakorizo for supper, or the smell of it cooking for lunch, elicited a physical response which included gagging and waves of nausea. The upside is that our visceral dislike for spanakorizo did support sibling connectedness, as we all worked together to rid ourselves of the vile meal without actually having to consume much of it. Many a times, a diversion was created, just enough of a distraction to allow us to wrap some of the spanakorizo in a paper towel and toss it in the trash. Our poor parents. We don’t think they ever caught on.
Anyhow, I guess we were pretty dumb kids because really, spanakorizo is anything but gross. It is a classic, easy, nutritious dish which reminds us that simple, wholesome ingredients can come together to create something which is pretty darn good. The name spanakorizo is a composite of the two key ingredients: spanaki meaning spinach and rizi meaning rice. There are a few other things thrown in of course, but the main stars are the greens and grain. Despite admitting that our childhood-selves loathed this meal, we hope that you do give it a try. Remember, today we crave it! And for the record, when we made spanakorizo for our kids when they were little, they loved it and would gobble it all up….we think.
Our parents’ spanakorizo is not dry. The spinach and rice bathe in the rich, tomato based sauce. This is the perfect time to grab a piece of bread and dunk away. Don’t worry, nobody is looking.
Recipe variations
Make a white spanakorizo
Follow the recipe I am sharing here but replace the tomato sauce with water and add the juice an an entire lemon to the finished meal.
Make spanakoquinoa
For an even healthier version of this recipe, replace the rice with quinoa. You can follow this recipe for spanakoquinoa.
Serving size
This recipe makes 4 servings.
Storing and reheating
Spakanorizo keeps several days in the refrigerator. You can also freeze spanakorizo and reheat it in the microwave
Related recipe
If you are looking for more simple, healthy recipes that feature spinach, I think you will love these:
Spinach and potato stew (Σπανάκι με πατάτες) A classic and rustic Greek meal of potato and spinach.
Spanakoquinoa (Σπανάκοκινόα) A twist on the classic spanakorizo with quinoa instead of rice.
Black-eyed peas and spinach (Φασόλια μαυρομάτικα με σπανάκι) A favourite! Black-eyed peas with spinach is full of goodness, and tastes great too.
Spanakorizo (Greek spinach and rice)
Equipment
- sauce pot
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup long grain rice, uncooked
- 20 ounces chopped fresh spinach
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley
- 1/2 cup Greek olive oil extra virgin
- 3-4 spring onions, chopped
- 2 cups tomato sauce
- 2 cups water
- salt and pepper to taste
- freshly squeezed lemon juice optional
Instructions
- Rinse 3/4 cup rice in cold water and set aside.3/4 cup long grain rice, uncooked
- Rinse the chopped spinach well. Rinse the parsley. Set aside.20 ounces chopped fresh spinach
- In a large pot sauté in the 1/2 cup of olive oil the 3-4 spring onions for 2 – 3 minutes, stirring constantly so that they do not burn. To the pot add the spinach and the 1/4 cup parsley. It may appear that there is too much spinach for the pot, but as it heats it will wilt and decrease in volume. Add rice on top of the spinach.1/4 cup chopped parsley, 1/2 cup Greek olive oil, 3-4 spring onions, chopped
- Add 2 cups water and 2 cups tomato sauce to the pot. Cover and cook over medium heat for approximately 30 minutes. After 30 minutes check to see how much liquid is in the pot, and test to see if the rice is cooked. If the spanakorizo appears too liquidy, continue to cook, uncovered, for a few minutes. Remove from the heat, and let sit a few minutes before serving; The longer it sits, the more it will thicken up.2 cups tomato sauce, 2 cups water
- Add salt and pepper to taste.salt and pepper
- Serve with freshly squeezed lemon juice and a side of feta if desired.freshly squeezed lemon juice
- Enjoy!
Great story 🙂 🙂 and thank you for recipe. Spinach is not my favourite. But maybe I am now grown up enough? ….:)
hehehe. Let us know if you try it, and like it 🙂
I laughed when I read about the love/hate relationship with spanakorizo. This is one of my favorite dishes to make for my nieces. Sometimes, I add a few more veggies that I have on hand and bake it in a casserole with a little feta on top. Its a great way to sneak spinach into a little one’s diet.
It certainly is! Spinach is not a favourite for the little ones, that is for sure.. I guess our tastes change as we ahem….mature 🙂
mature is the key word 🙂 lol
I’m married to a Greek and my elderly in-laws used to make this a lot. I love making it now because I miss it and it’s tasty and healthy and I know my in-laws (Yiayia and Papou) appreciate it when we make Greek dishes, but my husband and youngest child (who still lives at home) are never keen. Tomorrow, I’m going to add shrimp at the child’s request, so maybe I’ll win them over this time! No complaints, however, when we make avgolemono or pastisio.
Amazing! The addition of shrimp may make all the difference for your family!!! We hope so!! In fact, as children we both HATED this meal! But now it is one of our favourites, so there is hope! lol. Hope you find much to love here with us xoxo Helen & Billie
Really lovely recipe and a really nice post 🙂
Thank you 🙂
all i have left to buy for this recipe is spinach; 20 cups for 4-6 people is almost 3-4 cups per person. Your lovely pictures are what draws me to this recipe. I am looking at your keywords since i am afraid that the recipe wont be on the right hand side anymore by the time I am ready to make it.
Hi Marina. If you type spanakorizo in the search bar, you should find it! Otherwise, it is in the drop down menu of recipes under Vegan and also Nistisimo. I hope you enjoy this meal – it is really a delicious and easy way to eat your greens 🙂
Hi, I absolutely love Greek food along with Persian cuisine. Those two are my most loved foreign cuisine. I am looking in the internet for that perfect and authentic spanakorizo recipe that I can try cooking at home. I am just curious why your recipe used tomato sauce thus ending a bit redder than usual and soupier. All the spanakorizo I’ve encountered so far are white-greenish and dry. Is it really how the Greeks make it over there?
Hi Marb! Thank you for your interest in Mia Kouppa. Indeed, this is how our parents have always made spanakorizo, and this is how everyone in our family has as well. I’m sure there are regional and familial variations, all of which are likely delicious! Hope you try our version. Let us know how you like it! 🙂
This looks delicious! Can frozen spinach be substituted for fresh?
Thanks Tiffany! Sure, you can try the recipe with frozen spinach 🙂
Great to read. My mum suggested a few springs of mint and anything green going in the garden (eg silverbeet/ leek). Our little girl dubbed spanakorizo and its variations, a “yucky yum yum” food. That is, it looks yucky but tastes yum yum! She reckons a lot of Greek dishes fall into this category eg lentil soup (fakes) and fasolia me patates (green bean and potato stew).
This is hilarious!!! “Yucky yum yum” is classic, and we might borrow it 🙂
I had a Greek Uncle that made this recipe exactly as you make it with the addition of mint for flavor. Poli Cala. 👍😋
Oh that’s awesome! We’re so happy that our recipe brought back fond food memories.
I was laughing and nodding my head yes at the start of your story. I hated this dish growing up and thankfully Yiayia didn’t make it too often. I remember not being able to stomach any more of it one night and my Thea Thekla made me sit at the counter and finish every last grain. I think I was 8-10 years old. My Yiayia never made me eat it again. Now since then (I’m now 51) I have actually had a craving for it and was looking around for about a year now, albeit not too aggressively, for recipe. This popped up in a post on a Facebook page. Just printed it! Thanks for the giggle, the memory you brought back and the recipe. I hope to try it out later this week, matter of fact I think I have everything already so it might be sooner rather than later.
That’s amazing Diana! Thanks for taking the time to write and share your spanakorizo memory, even if a bit traumatic! LOL We hope you did give this recipe a try, and loved it. We actually make this often now, and love it almost as much as we hated it as kids!!
I hope I did you all proud! I agree about not liking it as a child. I did not have a visceral response but I didn’t enjoy it. My 21 year old, however, has been dying for me to make it since I told him I was going to! LOL! He’s liked it since very young. Thank you once again for helping me with the boost of confidence I sincerely need cooking-wise as well as connecting culturally! 🙂
Oh that’s so great Gia!!! We’re so happy that you tried our spanakorizo, and we are VERY proud 🙂 Did your son enjoy it??
My YiaYia would stay the 6 months allowed when we were growing up, many times over and helped raise my sister and I. Our mother passed away when my sister was 6 and I was almost 2. We however loved her cooking and this dish. She would add the juice from the lemons straight into the rice, spinach, tomato sauce as it cooked. Making the lemon a key flavor of the dish. A favorite she would make and something my sister and I still talk about how good it was even after 50 years.
Beautiful, and delicious, memories! Your yiayia’s version of spanakorizo sounds lovely. xoxo Helen & Billie
Hi there, I would swear we were related! I hated it so much that my parents would make me sit at the table with my uneaten plate of spanakorizo long after everyone else was done and the dishes were washed. I would then scrape it off my plate into the trash and cover it with a paper napkin.I would also wipe the edge of my plate of the oily evidence that it had gotten scraped off the plate. I think I only started loving it as a teen. Thanks for the recipe!
Anastasia
Ahahahaha, love it Anastasia!! You had quite a system going! We respect that 🙂 Funny how our tastes change as time goes on. So happy to have you here with us. xoxo Helen & Billie
I would like to know if I can use a different type rice (instead of long grain rice) for the spanakorizo. Would Arborio be also good to use. Thank you
Hi Marina, Sorry for the delay in responding to you. You probably can without issue. Good luck! xoxo Helen & Billie
This dish is a favorite of mine. My mom is from Kalamata and still makes this as a side dish to this day. In fact I had it yesterday. I make this often myself. This recipe is pretty similar to the way my mom makes it. Like yours, here is also more wet / saucy, though I have had versions that are much dryer. I prefer the saucier version. Side bar, in a pinch, when I have a craving and I do not have spinach in the house, I have used kale. It comes equally as tasty. Just need to make sure you cook it a teeny bit longer as kale can be tough. Bravo! Glad to see so many people loving it!
Thanks so much for your comment August! Agreed, spanakorizo is such an amazing food. Perfect as a side, or as a main meal which is how we usually have it. Love the idea of using kale for a twist. One of us (Billie) grows a ton of kale in her garden, so this will be a good way to use it! Thanks for stopping by, and hope you continue to find much to love here. xoxo Helen & Billie
My father favored avgolemono, which he made with orzo (pasta). I bet it would be a good substitute for this recipe.
Hi there Layne! We have realized that many people use orzo in recipes where we traditionally use rice. It is very interesting! And we are sure equally delicious! xoxo Helen & Billie
Great dish. I grew up on this. Only thing I changed is I used Cento Passata for the tomato sauce like my pappou did with homemade tomato sauce with tomatoes from the garden. Your recipe is the same and so very tasty. I make it alot. Kali oreksi
Hi Manolis! Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. So glad that you love this recipe. The homemade tomato sauce that we use is very much like store bought Passata; strained tomatoes and not much else (well, some basil and olive oil…but mainly tomatoes 🙂 ). Hope you find much more to love here with us! xoxo Helen & Billie
I’m excited to try this recipe- my kids love making spanakopita with me (and they eat their spinach), so maybe this will go over well at my house. 🙂 However, I’m stuck on the amount of spinach. 20 ounces, chopped? The big containers in the store are usually 7 ounces before chopping. About one big container? Two?
Hi Melissa – We usually use a box and a half of the large containers. A good rule of thumb is that 1.5 – 2 ounces of raw spinach is about 1 cup…which is about one handful. So, 20 handfuls of spinach should work. It does not have to be an exact science however, so a little more or a little less is fine. We hope you love this recipe. xoxo Helen & Billie
Also, 310 grams or so is about 11 ounces of raw spinach, so depending on the actual size of your box you can compare the grams to ounces needed. Enjoy! xoxo Helen & Billie
I made this the other night for company with grilled pork chops. It was delicious and I shall save it to my special recipes. Thanks so much
That is so great to hear! Thank you for letting us know and we hope you continue to find much to love here with us 🙂 xoxo Helen & Billie
I’ve always loved this dish, but there weren’t many dishes my mother made I didn’t like. She was a phenomenal cook. I add finely diced garlic and tomato paste (concentrate) and cans of finely chopped tomato instead of passata/juice. My mother used to grate tomatoes instead. At then once I’ve turned it off the heat I stir in finely chopped dill. We top it with a squeeze of lemon juice and feta.. delicious !
Food memories are the best, aren’t they Susie!!?? Thank you for sharing yours 🙂 Hope you continue to find much to love here with us. xoxo Helen & Billie
Turned out amazing. I was out of parsley and added dill instead.
Yay! So happy that you loved it! Thanks for giving our recipe a try (and great job on substituting the parsley for something you had!). Hope you continue to find much to love here with us! xoxo Helen & Billie
I have made your recipe many times and it always comes out perfect.The only thing I changed was instead of 2 cups of sauce,I add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste and 2 cups of water. Thank you for posting 🙂
Hi Helen! Thanks so much for taking the time to comment and we are so happy that this is a go-to recipe for you! Your substitution of tomato paste and water instead of tomato sauce is a great one – perfect if you don’t have the tomato sauce or just another way to make it. We will actually update the recipe to offer people your idea! Hope you continue to find much to love here with us. xoxo Helen & Billie
Delicious! It is miraculous how you can basically dump all the ingredients in a pot and in 30 minutes such a delicious dish comes together. I skipped adding the parsley and did not feel anything was missing.
Yes!!! So much of traditional Greek cooking is like that! Hope you continue to find much to love here with us 🙂 xoxo Helen & Billie
This recipe is the closest one I have found to how my Yaya made it growing up. So delicious. Brings me right back to my childhood. Thank you.
Oh that is wonderful Stephanie! We are so happy that this recipe brings back wonderful food memories! We hope you continue to find much to love here with us. xoxo Helen & Billie