Simple Spinach & Garlic Pasta
Garlic and onion hit hot olive oil, oregano and chili bloom on top, and then 280 grams of spinach pile into the skillet and collapse into a glossy, savory tangle in under three minutes.
The whole thing coats a bowl of whole wheat penne with a brothy, garlicky sauce that tastes like far more effort than twenty minutes. 468 calories, 21 grams of protein, and 12 grams of fiber from nine ingredients, no dairy anywhere in the pan.
Garlic and onion hit hot olive oil, oregano and chili bloom on top, and then 280 grams of spinach pile into the skillet and collapse into a glossy, savory tangle in under three minutes.
The whole thing coats a bowl of whole wheat penne with a brothy, garlicky sauce that tastes like far more effort than twenty minutes. 468 calories, 21 grams of protein, and 12 grams of fiber from nine ingredients, no dairy anywhere in the pan.
Ingredients
- penne, whole wheat 84 g
- garlic 1 clove
- onion 0.25
- spinach 280 g
- olive oil 15 ml
- oregano, dried 3 g
- chili powder 1 g
- vegetable bouillon 0.5 cube
- water 75 ml
Method
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Cook the pasta according to the package instructions. Drain and set aside.
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Mince the garlic, chop the onion, and roughly chop the spinach.
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Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and cook until the onion is translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the oregano and chili powder and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.
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Add the chopped spinach and stir until wilted, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the bouillon cube and water and let it simmer for another 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
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Add the pasta to the pan and mix well to coat it with the spinach and garlic. Serve warm.
Sauté the garlic and onion together before adding anything else. Research on allium vegetables found that garlic and onion increased iron bioaccessibility from grains by 9.9 to 73.3% (Gautam et al., 2010). Cooking them first in oil gives those sulfur compounds time to form before the spinach and pasta arrive in the pan.
An ETH Zurich study fed women spinach meals with and without added oxalates and measured iron absorption using stable isotopes. The result: zero significant difference (10.7% vs 11.5%, P=0.86). The compounds that actually reduce spinach iron absorption are polyphenols and calcium, not the oxalates that get all the blame.
Why This Works
Behind this recipe
Is 280 grams of spinach a lot?
It sounds enormous raw, but spinach is mostly water. That 280-gram pile wilts down to roughly 35 grams of cooked spinach in the pan, about the size of a small fist. Raw spinach volume is misleading, which is why the weight matters more than what it looks like on the cutting board.
Where does the protein come from without any meat or dairy?
The whole wheat penne contributes the majority at around 11 grams per 84-gram serving, and spinach adds roughly 8 grams from that 280-gram portion. The rest comes in small amounts from the onion and bouillon. The total of 21 grams across the full plate is about what you would get from a small chicken thigh.
Does cooking spinach destroy the iron?
No. Iron is a mineral, not a vitamin, so heat does not break it down. Cooking spinach actually concentrates the iron per gram because the water evaporates. What does affect absorption are other compounds in spinach, mainly polyphenols and calcium. An ETH Zurich study found that oxalates, the compound most commonly blamed for blocking spinach iron, had no significant effect on absorption (P=0.86).
Can I use regular pasta instead of whole wheat?
Yes. The recipe works the same way. You lose some fiber (whole wheat carries about twice the fiber of white pasta) and a few grams of protein, but the sauce, cooking method, and timing stay identical.
