Forget the Acropolis, forget the Parthenon – spanakopita might be the best invention of Greek civilization! Who can resist a savory pie filled with spinach and feta? And that, my friends, is why I offer up these delicious little Keto Spanakopita pastries. All the same wonderful flavors with a fraction of the carbs!
If you love spinach recipes, try Keto Spinach Stuffed Chicken or Spinach and Ricotta Fritters next.
★★★★★
One reader, Gils33, says: “Thank you for this great recipe. I made it today and it was better from the original one!!!! I had to stop my family members from eating it all”
Savory Keto Pastries with Fathead Dough
Of course, classic spanakopita takes phyllo dough, which is not in the least bit low carb. And there really isn’t a good way to make that flaky, crisp dough with keto ingredients like almond flour or coconut flour. But there are other delicious options for the crust.
Fathead dough is a weird and wonderful low carb invention based on mozzarella cheese and eggs. It makes for a wonderful keto pizza crust. Why not use it for little handheld keto spanakopita pies? It does not have the same flaky texture but it’s buttery and tender, and compliments the savory filling perfectly.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Frozen spinach: You can use fresh spinach, but you will need to sauté it first then squeeze out the moisture.
- Feta cheese: Any brand or style of feta will work for this recipe. If you don’t enjoy feta, try adding grated Parmesan to the filling instead.
- Onion: Just a little onion adds flavor without adding too many extra carbs.
- Garlic: Fresh garlic offers so much more flavor than garlic powder.
- Fathead dough: I recommend using the dough from my Keto Pizza Crust, but I also have a nut-free version that I use for keto bagels and other recipes. That would work as well.
- Almond flour: You need just a little to dust the work surface.
- Kitchen staples: Egg, salt and pepper.
How to Make Keto Spanakopita
- Drain the spinach: Squeeze out the excess moisture.
- Mix the filling: Combine the feta, egg, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper and mix well.
- Roll out the dough: Sprinkle a work surface with a little almond flour and roll the dough out into a large square. Cut into 16 even squares, about 4×4 inches.
- Assemble the spanakopita: Mound a little spinach mixture into the center of each square then fold the dough square over diagonally to make a triangle shaped pastry.
- Bake: Place the triangles on a baking sheet lined with parchment or silicone. Make a small slit in the top of each and bake until golden brown.
Carolyn’s Tips for Success
Do make sure to squeeze as much moisture as possible from the spinach. An overly wet filling can make the crust soggy.
Fathead dough is admittedly a bit tricky to make. Make sure to read all the tips in the pizza crust recipe to get the best results.
Also don’t make the dough too far in advance of making these pastries. It tends to lose elasticity as it sits, making it harder to work with. Get your filling all ready to go and then make the dough!
If the dough breaks or cracks as you fold it around the filling, not to worry. It’s malleable enough that you can simply pinch it back together.
More Delicious Greek Inspired Recipes
Keto Spanakopita Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 ounces (170.1 g) frozen spinach, thawed
- 1 cup (150 g) crumbled feta cheese
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup (40 g) finely chopped onion
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 recipe keto pizza crust
- Additional almond flour for rolling out.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF and line a large baking sheet with parchment or a silicone baking mat.
- Place the spinach in a tea towel and squeeze out the excess moisture. Transfer to a large bowl. Add the feta, egg, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper and mix until well combined.
- Sprinkle a work surface with about 2 or 3 tablespoons of almond flour. Roll the dough out into a large square about 16 inches by 16 inches. Using a very sharp knife or a pizza wheel, cut into 16 even squares.
- Mound about 1 tablespoons of the spinach mixture into the center of each square. Fold the dough square over diagonally to make a triangle shaped pie. If the dough breaks or cracks when folding, simply pinch back together and shape around the filling.
- Place the triangles on the prepared baking sheet and make a small slit in the top of each to allow the steam to escape. Bake 20 minutes, until golden brown. Remove and let cool on the pan.
Notes
Nutrition
Frequently Asked Questions
I am afraid I have never successfully made fathead dough with dairy-free alternatives. I do have a tasty keto focaccia bread recipe that can be made dairy-free, and you might be able to roll it out for the crust. It will be more bread-like but still quite tasty!
Yes, you can assemble the hand pies and freeze them individually. Then you can bake them whenever you have a craving! Let them thaw completely before baking.
This keto spanakopita hand pie recipe has 3.4g of carbs and 1.5g of fiber per serving. That comes to 1.9g net carbs per hand pie.
Nutritional Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.
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Made these today and they turned out awesome!! The only tricky part was the dough. Getting it to roll out into a square shape proved to be pretty tough. Because of this, a few of mine turned into little blobs instead of pretty triangles. Either way, it still turned out great and they are delicious!
Tasty little blobs!
Two Words. OH YUM. Can’t Stop Eating These. That may be six words ….
I have a batch currently in the oven…. sooo hungry
If I used fresh spinach for these, would you recommend just a quick saute to break them down first? Thanks!
Definitely! Saute them and then squeeze out the moisture.
Oh. my. god.
This opens a whole world of possibilities!
Thank you, it looks amazing!
You need to watch the Wayne and Shuster musical sketch about this food haha!
How do ai get the dough recipe
It’s linked right in the recipe.
I could be wrong, but Step 1 looks like it’s missing something.
Oh, thanks for the heads up. Not sure what happened there!
Oh my! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Did I say thank you? I LOVE Spanokopita!
Any idea if these would freeze well? Would be great to grab one out of the freezer for a quick lunch….kind of like the Hot Pockets I ate in my past!
Yes, they should freeze just fine.
Eeeaaaaahhhh! CANTWAITCANTWAITCANTWAIT! (and why didn’t I think of this, I’ve so missed these?)
–Marv
Hi, Carolyn. I have always prided myself on pronouncing words correctly, and now, because of you, I have discovered that I, too, have pronounced spanakopita and detritus wrong! Oh, the shame! I still remember giving an oral report in grade 7 about the eye, and pronounced “retina” with the accent on the second syllable: ruh-TEEN-a, and my science teacher never corrected me. (Maybe he didn’t know either, because I got an A+ on the report!– or was he just being kind?) I didn’t realize for years that I’d said it wrong.
Could I make a batch and put them in the freezer, then just pull out 2 or 3 at a time and bake them?
Yup, that would work!
These look delicious! Looking at the dough makes me wonder if you could use these for pot stickers. Hmmm.
As my mother always said, ‘Timing is everything’! I picked up shredded mozzarella at Trader Joe’s yesterday, but of course don’t have the frozen spinach :-/ Any reason steamed and squeezed fresh won’t do the trick?
There’s just something so appealing about a hand pie! 🙂
Thanks, Carolyn!
As long as you really squeeze out that spinach so there isn’t much moisture left.
Thanks, it worked great! Delicious! 🙂
1- I object to that pronunciation!
2-you are totally reading my mind lately first Pecan Tassies now spanakopita?!?! YES! YES! YES! and finally
3- Dang I just haven’t gotten the hang of that mozzerella dough, now I really have to! I’m missing out on all of the yummiest things!
Thank you for all your hard work and fabulous recipes!
I am planning on doing a video soon for the mozz dough to help people out.
I’m so pleased you’re going to do a video. The ingredients are too expensive to have it bomb 🙁
Yes please do a video on the handpies
Just made these tonight and a HUGE hit with everybody. Delicious.
Hit on a great way to handle the dough that was a great success and thought I would share.
I rolled the dough out between two sheets of parchment paper. Discarded the top sheet as usual and marked off the squared to cut (used my plastic kitchen ruler and a knife). When it came time to actually cut the squares it occurred to me to simply use kitchen shears and leave each square of dough attached to its piece of parchment paper.
Transferred each square (with its paper still on) to the baking sheet and added the filling. Folded the square in half (aided again by the paper which was still attached) and pressed/sealed the edges. Only then did I remove the paper from the top then flipped the filled triangle over….and removed the paper completely. Then did the final crimp/seal with the fork. Leaving the little square of paper on the dough meant I had no cracking, no tearing, and a 100% success rate with this great (but somewhat fragile) dough. It worked like a charm.
One other tip….rather than use a tea towel to wring the water out of the spinach I put the thawed spinach in my potato ricer and pressed the excess moisture out that way (pressed out the bottom and tipped out the moisture collecting on the top as well). I use this ricer for making the BEST cauliflower mash. It really gets rid of excess moisture and insures a nice fluffy cauli mash. I use it with the smaller of the two grids….too small to force the cooked cauliflower through, forcing only the excess water out before dumping the strained cauliflower into a bowl to add warm cream, parmesan and other seasonings. Ex-potato ricer finds new a new purpose in its life in the low carb era.