Garlic Sautéed Spinach is a quick and healthy side dish.

This recipe is part of our Family Dinner Book Club menu to accompany the children’s book One Plastic Bag by Miranda Paul. Garlic Sautéed Spinach is an easy side dish to throw together and adds a nice touch of green to your dinner.

Sometimes a dinner menu just needs an extra touch of color to round it all out, and if that color comes from a healthy leafy green, even better! Spinach is full of iron, magnesium, potassium, and calcium. So much goodness all in one dish.

I struggle to get enough iron in my diet, but I also struggle to eat the foods that are high in iron. So how do I muscle down a full serving of spinach? Sauté it in garlic oil, of course! Have you seen those memes about how many cloves of garlic a recipe calls for? Yeah, that’s me. If you’ve ever made my Garlicky Lemon Hummus, you’ll know what I mean. There’s a reason the word garlicky is in there!

The recipe below calls for 2 cloves of garlic, because that’s a “normal” amount, but you absolutely can use as much garlic as you love! The trick to getting the most garlic flavor here is to sauté the garlic, starting with cold oil, before adding the spinach. You’re making garlic-infused olive oil here, and that oil will fully coat all the spinach so you get a lovely garlic flavor in every bite.

Are you a garlic lover? What about iron-rich foods? How do you make sure you get enough in your diet? I could use some tips!