Recipe: Easy Spinach Puffs

Crescent roll dough is one of our favorite ingredients to have on hand! Like chickpeas, crescent rolls are super versatile and you can make a lot of different recipes with them. We like to fill the dough with different ingredients to make various side dishes or desserts, like spinach puffs and blueberry pastries. This recipe is one we originally made with puff pastry dough, but we recently tried it with crescent roll dough and liked the results even more!

Crescent dough is a relatively cheap ingredient, but to maximize savings, pick up a few tubes whenever they’re on sale! It stays fresh for a long time, so don’t worry if you don’t have an immediate plan for it. If you are vegan, double check that the brand is safe. If you’re a college student, you can often find fresh spinach on campus salad bar lines – this is a great way to source a “free” ingredient. For non-college students or students without a meal plan, frozen spinach is always good too! It lasts for a long time in the freezer and is much cheaper than buying fresh spinach.

Easy Spinach Puffs (makes 8 puffs)

Ingredients:

• Spinach (meal plan or $0.99/serving) *
• Crescent rolls ($2.19/package) OR puff pastry ($4.99/package)  
• Olive Oil ($0.20/serving)
• Garlic and Herb Seasoning ($0.08/serving)

Supplies:

• Sheet pan ($5.00)

Open the crescent rolls and separate the triangles of dough. Spread them out on a sheet pan, brush with olive oil, and sprinkle with seasoning blend. Carefully place spinach on top and fold the dough to close, pinching the seams and making sure there aren’t any openings (the puffs will expand in the oven, so you don’t want openings or the spinach might escape!). Brush olive oil over the top of the puffs, and if desired, push a spinach leaf into the top. Bake according to the directions on the crescent roll packaging – pull the puffs out of the oven when they’re golden brown, about 12-14 minutes. 

* We’ve found it helpful to steam the spinach in a microwave before filling the puffs! Steaming it first will start cooking it down and means you can fit more in each puff. Place most of your spinach in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for about 1 minute, or until soft – save a few leaves to place on top of your puffs if you want! 

** If you want to make this recipe with puff pastry instead, cut the pastry dough into squares and fill the same way as the crescent roll dough. Fold into triangles, brush with olive oil, and bake according to puff pastry directions.