Seven ingredients and thirty-five minutes for sixteen crisps. There is no flour, no breadcrumb and no pastry anywhere — the mixture is held together by an egg white and two cheeses.
Everything about this recipe is a fight against moisture. Squeezing the spinach, flattening the mounds very thinly, and flipping them halfway are all the same instruction in three different forms.
Why This Recipe Works
- Squeezing the chopped spinach very dry removes the water that would otherwise steam the crisps soft.
- Finely grated Parmesan melts and re-sets as a brittle sheet, which is most of the crispness.
- A single egg white binds without adding the fat or moisture a whole egg would.
- Flattening very thinly is what lets the middle dry out in the same time as the edges.
- Flipping exposes the underside to dry heat rather than leaving it against a wet pan.
Ingredient Notes
- Baby spinach
- Five ounces, finely chopped and squeezed very dry. It looks like a lot and reduces to very little once the water is out.
- Finely grated Parmesan
- Half a cup, and finely grated matters — it melts into a sheet that sets brittle, which is where much of the crispness comes from.
- One egg white
- The only binder in the recipe. A whole egg would bring yolk fat and more moisture and give something softer.
- No base
- There is no flour, dough, pastry or breadcrumb in this recipe at all.
How to Make It
Line a sheet pan
Heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and line a sheet pan with parchment.
Mix — spinach very dry
Mix very dry chopped spinach, feta, Parmesan, egg white, olive oil, oregano, and pepper.
Flatten very thinly
Spoon tablespoon-size mounds onto the pan and flatten each very thinly into irregular rounds.
Bake, flip, bake again
Bake 15 minutes, flip carefully, and bake 4 to 6 minutes more until deep golden, dry, and crisp.
Cool, then break into shards
Cool completely on a rack, then break larger pieces into irregular shards if desired.
Four Ways of Getting the Water Out
Everything that separates a crisp from a soft green patty in this recipe is moisture. Each rung removes some, and skipping any one of them leaves enough behind to steam the batch.
Squeeze - before anything is mixedVery dry, before mixing
5 oz of baby spinach finely chopped and squeezed VERY DRY. Five ounces of raw spinach holds far more water than it looks like it does, and it is the single biggest source in the recipe. This rung happens before the bowl, because water squeezed out afterwards takes the cheese with it.
Bind with as little as possibleEgg white only, no flour
4 oz crumbled feta, 1/2 cup FINELY grated Parmesan, 1 egg WHITE, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp oregano and 1/4 tsp pepper. One white rather than a whole egg: no yolk fat and much less liquid. The Parmesan is finely grated so it melts into a sheet and re-sets brittle, which is where most of the crispness actually comes from - not from a flour or breadcrumb base, of which there is none.
Flatten VERY thinlyTablespoon mounds, pressed flat
Tablespoon-size mounds onto parchment, each flattened very thinly into irregular rounds. Thickness is time: a thin round dries all the way through in the same twenty minutes that leaves a thick one soft in the middle. Irregular is fine - the finished crisps are shards.
Flip, then cool completelyFlip at 15 minutes, cool on a rack
15 minutes, then flipped CAREFULLY and given 4 to 6 minutes more until deep golden, dry and crisp. The flip exposes an underside that has been sitting against its own moisture. Then cooled completely on a rack: these finish crisping as they cool, and a warm one still bends.
Success Tips
- Squeeze the spinach harder than feels necessary — this is the step that decides everything.
- Flatten each mound very thinly; a thick one bakes soft in the middle.
- Cool them completely before handling; they crisp as they cool.
Serving Ideas
Sixteen thin deep-golden crisps in a white square bowl, densely green with spinach and studded with white feta, broken into irregular shards.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a pastry or breadcrumb base?
None. The mixture is spinach, feta, Parmesan and one egg white, and the crisps hold together on the cheese and the binder alone.
Mine came out soft. What went wrong?
Almost always the spinach. Squeezed very dry it crisps; left damp it steams the mixture from the inside however long it bakes.
How is this different from the spinach feta egg muffins?
Those are soft set egg baked in a muffin tin with whole eggs and milk. These are thin, flat and crisp, bound with a single egg white and no dairy liquid at all.
