Spinach and artichoke dip
The baked, molten, pull-a-string-of-cheese dip, and the one place where frozen spinach genuinely beats fresh. Everything depends on one unglamorous step, which is wringing the spinach until it is bone dry.
Prep15 min
Cook25 min
Rest10 min
Oven200°C
Servings8
The American restaurant standard, made drier so it does not weep
Ingredients
Written for a 20 × 20 cm dish
Units
Temperature
Servings
Dip
- 300 g frozen chopped spinach, thawed and then wrung out completely; see the notes rounded
- 280 g artichoke hearts, from a jar or tin, drained and roughly chopped rounded
- 200 g cream cheese, at room temperature, or it will stay in lumps rounded
- 120 g sour cream rounded
- 100 g mozzarella, the firm block kind, grated, not the ball in water rounded
- 60 g parmesan, finely grated rounded
- 2 garlic cloves rounded
- 5 g coarse black pepper rounded
- 3 g fine salt, go easy, because the parmesan is salty rounded
- to taste chilli flakes rounded
Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.
Method
- Wring the spinach out. Put it in a clean tea towel and twist until nothing more comes out, then twist again. You should end up with roughly half the weight you started with. This is the entire difference between a good dip and a watery one.
- Drain the artichokes properly too, and pat them dry.
- Beat the cream cheese smooth with the sour cream and garlic before adding anything else. Cold cream cheese will never come smooth.
- Fold in everything except a handful of the mozzarella, spread into the dish, and scatter the rest on top.
- Bake at 200°C for 25 minutes until bubbling in the middle and browned in patches.
- Rest 10 minutes. It is molten and it will burn someone.
Notes
- Frozen spinach is the right choice, which is rare. It is already broken down, it is cheaper, and once wrung out it has a better texture here than fresh, which goes stringy.
- Block mozzarella, not the fresh ball. Fresh mozzarella is roughly half water and will flood the dish.
- Parmesan and most Italian hard cheeses use animal rennet, which is why this is a vegetarian option rather than vegetarian. Vegetarian hard cheeses work identically.
- It can be assembled a day ahead and baked from cold, adding about 10 minutes.
Ingredient substitutions
- Artichoke hearts in brine are sharper and better here than the ones in oil, which make the dip greasy. Drain and rinse the brined ones.
- Cream cheese is Doppelrahmfrischkäse in Germany. Do not use a herb or garlic flavoured one, which will fight the rest.
Sources consulted
Good with
Sources consulted
From Christoph Mayer