Sautéed Spinach, mushrooms, and caramelized onions - a delicious side dish recipe that will go great with lots of main dishes.
The flavors of mushrooms, spinach, caramelized onions, garlic, and Parmesan cheese mingle really well in this vegetarian dish. It's quite versatile: you can eat it as-is, especially if you're craving some good-tasting, creamy vegetables. You can serve it alongside some pasta, ravioli or ready made tortellini. It is also great with grilled steak, pork, or chicken.
For me, personally, this delicious Sautéed Spinach with Mushrooms and Caramelized Onions is a favorite side dish for grilled meats. The recipe is flexible: you can exclude the creamy sauce and Parmesan cheese, if you're trying to eat a little bit healthier (even though the recipe doesn't use much of either). You can also omit onions if you don't like them, or, if you don't have time to caramelize them, just saute them.
Sautéed Spinach, mushrooms, and caramelized onions
Ingredients
Caramelized onions
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 onions , medium or large, sliced
- pinch of salt
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Cooked mushrooms and spinach:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 8 oz mushrooms , sliced (such as button mushrooms, shiitake, etc.)
- 3 garlic cloves , minced
- pinch of salt
- 6 oz spinach , fresh
Optional cream sauce
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup milk
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese shredded
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
Caramelized onions
- Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil on high heat in a large skillet, when oil is heated, add sliced onions and cook on high heat for about 10 minutes, constantly stirring with spatula. The onions should start to brown, but without burning (a couple of onions may be burnt here and there, but overall they should not be charred).
- Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking onions for 10 more minutes, continuing to stir, as onions brown even more without burning. At this point add just a pinch of salt over onions.
- Continue cooking for 10 more minutes on medium or low heat, stirring occasionally to make sure onions don’t stick to the bottom of the pan or burn. Total you should have cooked onions for 30 minutes.
- Remove from heat and sprinkle onions with a small amount of balsamic vinegar to deglaze the pan. Using spatula, mix the onions, scraping the bottom of the pan and coating onions with a pinch of balsamic vinegar you just added.
Cooking mushrooms and spinach
- After you have started cooking onions, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in another pan, and add sliced mushrooms (I used shiitake with stems removed, you can use any small sized mushrooms) and minced garlic. Add just a pinch of salt. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook mushrooms and garilc covered for about 20 minutes, occasionally stirring.
- Add cooked mushrooms to the pan with caramelized onions, add 3 cups of spinach and stir on low heat just until spinach wilts. Serve as is as a side dish or proceed to make a creamy sauce as below.
Optional cream sauce
- Add heavy cream, milk, Parmesan cheese and ¼ teaspoon salt to the mushroom-onions-spinach mixture on medium-low heat and mix. Stir to coat on low heat for about 5-10 minutes until Parmesan cheese melts and starts to coat the vegetables.
- Serve as a side dish along grilled meats.
Nutrition
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
This recipe is insanely good! I make it regularly. I made a vegan version where I used oat milk and vegan parmesan, it's not quite as good as the original (sorry vegans) but still really good! I always have it with tagliatelle - sometimes homemade which is the best! People always ask me for this recipe and my family and friends all make it on the regs. Thanks Julia
This was really good, both my husband and I enjoyed and looking forward to adding this to many more dinners to come.
AMAZING!!! Prepared tonight with the cream sauce and it was layered with flavor and devoured.
I stuffed spaghetti squash with this.. I also added turkey bacon in mixture. Baked in over with shredded motzerella cheese and Monterey jack. Was so delicious.
Never cut the stem off from a shiitake! According to recent valid researsch, it has more beta-glucan than other parts!!! I buy a lot of shiitake with big stems only because of the beta-glucan content.
loved it, I added white wine and shredded carrots, really fantastic
I tossed this with fettuccine for a meatless main dish. It was delicious! The only drawback was the time involved. Next time, I’m going to try starting the mushrooms first so that they can cook while I caramelize the onions.
I used the Mom U Instant Pot method for carmelizing the onions and I was gobsmacked by how good and easy they were!
https://youtu.be/rmFchbicyHk
Delicious! Wouldn’t change a thing. Family loved it!
Can I use half and half? I don't have any heavy cream.
I did and then I added a little cream cheese to help thicken it.