You Don't Need Cream To Make Delicious Creamed Spinach

Hearty and comforting, creamed spinach is the perfect side to many home-cooked meals. It pairs well with a nice cut of steak, but it's filling enough to stand on its own, too. For the most part, its basic ingredients are spinach, cream, and parmesan cheese, plus optional additions like onions and garlic. But what if you don't have any cream on hand, and your local store just ran out? It turns out that pairing evaporated milk with a quick roux is just the trick to the creamiest spinach side — and nobody will ever know the difference.

The late author and cook Laurie Colwin took an unconventional route for her creamed spinach recipe, choosing evaporated milk over cream and spicing it up, literally, with jalapeños. The biggest trick here is to nail the roux, though, since you want it to be just the right thickness to make sure that cream base adequately sticks to the wilted spinach. It's a method that's also endorsed by the Food Network's Ellie Krieger, who notes that evaporated milk is, "a really great ingredient [for] when you want creamy without the cream."

Laurie Colwin, who writes about the dish in her cookbook, "Home Cooking," would combine evaporated milk with a classic roux made from 4 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of flour, which creates a creamy, thickened texture. Interestingly, the spinach liquid plays a role here, too, seemingly working with the milk to make sure the cream doesn't become too thick. From there, the recipe calls for unconventional ingredients like Monterey Jack and jalapeños for a more unique flavor.

So, what is evaporated milk, and how does it differ from regular milk? In simple terms, it's just more-concentrated milk. It essentially takes regular milk and heats it to remove more than half of its water content. This allows the milk to be more shelf stable, and since it's sold in cans rather than sitting in the refrigerator section, it lasts much longer than regular milk. It's a great idea to keep a can of evaporated milk on hand in case you ever need it as substitute — such as in the case of creamed spinach.

The evaporated milk method is just one alternative to using heavy cream for creamed spinach. But regular milk is perfectly fine to use, too. Whole milk combined with a butter and flour roux will also thicken similarly to heavy cream, but one thing to consider is the type of milk used. For a thicker sauce, whole milk is best. You could potentially use 2% milk, but anything less fatty than that will likely leave you with a too-watery sauce. Plus, it has the potential to curdle due to having so little fat and too much heat. (The same can be said for Greek yogurt.)

Besides milk, you can use a blend of cream cheese and butter to give you that creamy texture, too. Cream cheese is certainly thicker than heavy cream, so rather than create a roux, you might actually want to use some of the reserve spinach liquid to water it down a bit. Pair it with butter for extra richness, and it becomes a perfect heavy cream alternative.