A buttery, tender almond flour dough stuffed with spinach and feta. This low carb keto spanakopita will have your tastebuds dancing!
How many times have you said a word you’ve used any number of times, only to find out you’ve been pronouncing it incorrectly for years? Possibly even decades. My husband just informed me the other day that I’ve been saying “detritus” all wrong, all this time. And he only knew because he said it at work and someone corrected him. Apparently, instead of DET-tritus, it is actually duh-TRITE-us. Strong emphasis on the second syllable, and a long i in that syllable. You could have knocked me over with a feather. It sounded so strange to my ears and it seemed like it couldn’t be true. But a little Googling proved that weird, formal sounding pronunciation to be correct. Damn, I hate it when I am wrong.
But we all do it at times. Many of us see words written before we ever say them aloud, especially longer, more formal words that don’t enter normal speech very often. When my sister was little, she thought that the word “briefly” was said “Bry-fly” and imagined it was some sort of briefcase. When I was teaching Kaplan SAT Prep, I asked one of my students to read a paragraph aloud and she read the word “epitome” as Epi-Tome. When I corrected her, she was flabbergasted. Of course she knew what an epitome was but had never seen it written and hadn’t made the connection. And I remember my husband (back in the day, when he was still my boyfriend) snorting with laughter when I first pronounced the word Episcopalian. I had all the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble.
And then there come unfamiliar words from other languages. I am not sure when I first tried spanakopita but I’ve always loved it. I do know that I absolutely slaughtered the poor word upon my first few times saying it out loud. I was familiar with pita bread so I somehow emphasized those last two syllables at the end. Never mind, someone corrected me along the way and I happily ate the spinach, feta, and phyllo pie ever chance I got. It’s tasty stuff but I haven’t had it in years since phyllo and my blood sugar aren’t exactly friends anymore.
But I was working with the dough from my garlic knots a few weeks back, and it struck me how delicious it would be filled with spanakopita-type fillings. So I rolled my dough really thin and cut it into 16 squares, then mounded the spinach and feta goodness inside. The dough did crack at times, but it’s stretchy and malleable enough that I could pinch it back together and shape it into cute little triangles. And so low carb Spanakopita Hand Pies were born. No matter how you pronounce it, it is delicious!
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A buttery, tender almond flour dough stuffed with spinach and feta. This low carb keto spanakopita will have your tastebuds dancing!
- 6 ounces frozen spinach thawed
- 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 Magic Mozzarella Dough from Garlic Knots
- Additional almond flour for rolling out.
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Preheat the oven to 350F.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Serves 16. Each serving has 1.95g NET CARBS.
Food energy: 123kcal Total fat: 9.47g Calories from fat: 85 Cholesterol: 26mg Carbohydrate: 3.41g Total dietary fiber: 1.46g Protein: 5.65g
Dawn says
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!
Carolyn says
I am planning on doing a video soon for the mozz dough to help people out.
stacy says
I’m so pleased you’re going to do a video. The ingredients are too expensive to have it bomb 🙁
Paula Pfarr Jackson says
Yes please do a video on the handpies
Deborah says
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.
Tory says
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!
Carolyn says
As long as you really squeeze out that spinach so there isn’t much moisture left.
Tory says
Thanks, it worked great! Delicious! 🙂
Lori Kaumans says
These look delicious! Looking at the dough makes me wonder if you could use these for pot stickers. Hmmm.
stacy says
Could I make a batch and put them in the freezer, then just pull out 2 or 3 at a time and bake them?
Carolyn says
Yup, that would work!
Paulette says
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.
Marv says
Eeeaaaaahhhh! CANTWAITCANTWAITCANTWAIT! (and why didn’t I think of this, I’ve so missed these?)
–Marv
Kathy says
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!
Carolyn says
Yes, they should freeze just fine.
Sara says
Oh my! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Did I say thank you? I LOVE Spanokopita!
Chad Mercer says
I could be wrong, but Step 1 looks like it’s missing something.
Carolyn says
Oh, thanks for the heads up. Not sure what happened there!
Melody says
How do ai get the dough recipe
Carolyn says
It’s linked right in the recipe.
Heather says
You need to watch the Wayne and Shuster musical sketch about this food haha!
Maria says
Oh. my. god.
This opens a whole world of possibilities!
Thank you, it looks amazing!
Mary says
If I used fresh spinach for these, would you recommend just a quick saute to break them down first? Thanks!
Carolyn says
Definitely! Saute them and then squeeze out the moisture.
Lou says
I have a batch currently in the oven…. sooo hungry
Karen says
Two Words. OH YUM. Can’t Stop Eating These. That may be six words ….
Laura W says
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!
Carolyn says
Tasty little blobs!
Carol says
I tried the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies out for just me & my hubby last night and HE LOVED IT.
He loved the look of the cookie and the taste resembles a “Reeces cup”. He picked up his “fork” instead of picking the cookie up to eat by hand, and savored EVERY DELECTABLE BITE! Best dessert yet! It was a large size cookie too, which he likes “large” size, which was enough for him! Keep posting those great recipes!
BethinTX says
You know what they say about people mispronouncing words, right? Never criticize because it means they learned it by reading. 🙂
jewel says
Carolyn,
Wow your site holds such wonders. I made this recipe tonight but did the jelly-roll approach you showed in a different recipe. They came out wonderful and taste so good. Can they really be only 2 carbs per?
I can’t thank you enough for all your wonderful cookery wisdom.
Kind regards,
Jewel
Amy says
Hi Carolyn! Can you make these up the day before and bake them the next day?
Carolyn says
Probably!
micheles says
for non greeks, it is perfectly acceptable to refer to spanakopita (spa-na-KO-pee-ta) as just plain ol’ spinach pie. it is nearly impossible to property pronounce the word without a proper greek accent, so there’s no point even trying. my cousin’s wife, a non greek, has learned to make a damn good spanakopita but her pronunciation of the classic is nothing short of abysmal. i haven’t the heart to tell her though, bless her heart.
Virginia says
My Greek friends have made Spanakopita for years, always generously sharing with me, because they know how much I love it. Breaks my heart to not be able to eat the gluten, and now switching to entirely low carb as well. Didn’t stop me; I often ate some although I paid for it later! So now…to have discovered your gluten-free, low carb Spanakopita is a dream come true! I can’t wait to make this, but as my Greek friends when they make Spanakopita, I’ll add a pinch of nutmeg and a little lemon zest plus a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to the spinach mixture. Can’t wait to make this recipe, Carolyn, as well as “play” with the different uses for the Magic Mozzarella Dough!
Cici says
I’m having a little Fathead dilemma I’m hoping you can help me with. My dough never comes out as manageable as it’s supposed to.
My daughter and I made the spanakopita recently. Dhile I have struggled with the dough in the past, she never has. I know this dough originated from your garlic knots, but when I make this dough, there’s no way I could twist it into a knot. It’s just to fragile. My daughter, on the other hand never has a problem with it. So thinking it’s either my cheese, or my eggs. I am using pre-shredded low moisture mozzarella. I am also using fresh eggs from my chickens. Do you think either of those is the culprit? Other than that, o use Honeyville & Bob’s coconut flour. Thoughts?
Carolyn says
Hmmmm. I can’t see why fresh eggs would be an issue, unless they are smaller or larger than regular eggs. That could be it, I guess? Are you weighing out the mozzarella?
Coco says
So I’ve just found out that I could do MY OWN low carb phyllo and I’m thrilled! But the link in the ingredients doesn’t open 🙁 Carolyn, thanks a bunch for the recipe, but could you write the recipe for the dough or give me a link that opens. I saw in the comments that it contains mozzarella, but could I sub it for something else to make the dough taste neutral and use it for desserts? Thanks in advance for the recipe of the dough! 🙂
Carolyn says
It does open. Are you on mobile? that may be the problem. Here is the direct link: https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2015/12/low-carb-garlic-parmesan-knots.html
And yes, it can be made sweet, here’s the link for that (it still contains mozzarella but I promise you won’t know it) https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2015/12/low-carb-chocolate-walnut-swirls.html
Coco says
Thank you! These links works properly. I was wondering if I could use cheese other than mozzarella – here we have kashakaval which is similar to mozzarella – it melts wonderfully and is more affordable, but it’s salty. There are some slightly sweet tasting cheeses that would probably work for sweet goodies like your choco swirls or baklava … what do you think? Or it has to be exactly mozzarella? And why part skim, wouldn’t the whole milk type do the trick? Oh, and how thin could it be rolled out – I’m thinking of making low carb banitza (phyllo filled with butter, eggs and similar to feta cheese nom nom nom!) but it requires really thin phyllo sheets. And last question (phew!) – could this dough be used for making puff pastry if rolled out, spreaded with butter, than folded and you know the rest – would the layers separate or probably everything would simply melt because it would be basically just cheese and butter…
Carolyn says
I really can’t say, I’ve never used those cheeses.
Sara says
I’m not sure why the Dough link doesn’t open for you, maybe try another browser? It works for me even on my phone. I just tried it now.
Jennifer says
The original link for the knots would not open for me on my mobile, either. Never had that happen with a link, I could only copy it, not open it. Second link worked ?
Anne Dalin says
When making the spanikopita, I need to count the carbs separately for the dough and filling. Is that correct? I cannot wait to try this recipe!!!
Carolyn says
I don’t count these carbs separately, not sure why you would need to?
Rebecca says
You are just beautiful ! And I believe that you should keep making videos! People love videos!…. I think more than they like to read.
eva says
Made these last night. Wow are they delicious. My carb-loving husband called them spectacular! Thanks for a new favorite recipe
tim says
What happened to the recipe? I saw this for the spanakopita and the low carb pecan bars, went to town to get the ingredients it need, and now it’s gone??
Carolyn says
It’s not you. My site is having issues and we are trying to get it fixed ASAP
Marie says
I just made these and they are so delicious! I used fresh spinach, cooked down and squeezed dry. Onion and garlic powders. I rolled the crust out to approx 11×17″, cut into 16 rectangles, and had maybe 1/3 cup filling left over. I was worried that my imperfect rectangles would not hold the filling and I would have a mess after baking, but that didn’t happen at all – the dough doesn’t really move at all and if the filling is dry enough it won’t leak. Great recipe!
janine says
I tried to make the mozzarella dough but failed miserably – it wouldnt stick together.
Tracy says
The dough came together so well! I did end up adding additional almond flour in the kneading stage. I think I may have rolled it too thick, because I ended up with a lot of extra filling. Next time I’ll roll it thinner because I won’t be so nervous about it holding together. It worked like a charm.
Joy says
Just tried these tonight….delicious! I never did well with rolling these doughs between paper so I bought me a cast iron tortilla press and now so easy! I divided into four balls then cut each circle into four pie shape pieces and they still are triangle shaped.
Carolyn says
Very cool!
Naomi says
Just doubled the recipe and made it into a huge log. Added a nice pinch of crushed red pepper flake and an egg white wash. It’s in the oven and smells insane!