Spinach Grilled Cheese is the most delicious way to eat your veggies! In fact, I tell my kids it’s leprechaun grilled cheese and they gobble them right up!
Once upon a time, I was an ambitious mother. A mother who thought I could force trick my children into eating veggies. I tried pretending like eggs were an airplane that landed in the kids mouth.. I tried calling broccoli trees, sometimes the trees even danced, right into my two-year old’s mouth. I tried lots of other methods that I’m embarrassed to tell you about. Unfortunately, non of them worked on Branson. It wasn’t until I started chopping spinach and adding it to things that he started to eat veggies. Mostly because I told him that the green food was “leprechaun” food. Hey a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do. Right?
I transformed one of my kids favorite comfort foods to include spinach. The melted cheese makes them beg for more. And the spinach makes me happy to give them more. Besides making them for the kids I love them, and it tricks Justin into veggies too!! That makes two scores for me! One for the kids and one for the husband!
Grab a handful of spinach. Add it to a food processor. Chop it pretty good. Leprechaun spinach has to be pretty small.
Add a handful of grated cheese, a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, a little soft butter, a spoonful of mayo and a little freshly ground black pepper.
Pulse until it’s all combined. Add more mayo if needed to make it hold together.
Butter outsides of two pieces of bread. Spread filling on insides (not buttered sides) of bread. Build the sandwich with buttered sides on outside.
Place sandwiches in skillet heated over medium heat. Flip when they are golden brown. Continue cooking until the other side is golden. Cut in half and serve.
There are lots of options with this sandwich. I like to add ham and tomatoes too. Sometimes I add fresh basil in with the spinach. Yum!
Grilled cheese is the ultimate comfort food. This one happens to be a really tasty trick that will help you get your kids to eat their spinach! No airplanes or dancing food needed!
Grilled Cheese & Spinach Sandwich
Ingredients
- 4 slices of bread
- 1 cup fresh spinach
- 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
- 3 T grated Parmesan cheese
- 2-3 T mayo
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 T. butter softened and divided
- Optional:
- Ham bacon, tomatoes, basil
Instructions
- Put spinach in food processor. Pulse until it is finely chopped.
- Add cheddar and Parmesan cheese, mayo, butter and pepper. Pulse until it is combined and just starting to stick together. Add mayo as needed to help it stick together.
- Butter outsides of bread.
- Spread spinach mixture on not buttered sides of two pieces of bread. Top with other pieces of bread with buttered sides outside.
- Heat skillet over medium heat. Grill sandwiches on each side until golden brown.
- Slice in half and serve.
Amy served these while I was visiting, and call tell you they are super yummy. I love comfort foods.
Mom
Yesterday I made a spinach smoothie for my kids after school. Kade got sooo excited because he thought it was yours! (I didn’t know you had one.) He said that he ate “green” food when he was visiting with you guys. He thinks its pretty yummy too! I’ll hafta try this out–looks good. Maybe I’ll even eat my veggies:)
Could you make a batch of this and put it in the freezer…?! Trying to decide what to do with my bag of spinach
Hi Rachel! Those bags of spinach are HUGE aren’t they? I’m not sure if you are wondering if you can freeze the spinach filling, or make the sandwiches and freeze those. Either way, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m afraid if you froze the filling it the spinach would get watery, and if you freeze the sandwiches they will become soggy. However, you can lay the spinach flat on a baking sheet and freeze it like that. Later on you can add it to smoothies! Hope that helps!