Spanakopita Triangles
Layers of paper-thin phyllo brushed with olive oil and filled with spinach, feta, fresh dill, and egg — Greece's most iconic pastry, made in individual triangles for easy party serving. Crispy, salty, herby, and deeply satisfying.
- 16 ozbaby spinach(or frozen, thawed and squeezed dry)
- 8 ozfeta cheese(crumbled)
- 1 mediumyellow onion(finely diced)
- 4 wholescallions(sliced)
- 3 tbspfresh dill(chopped)
- 2 largeeggs(beaten)
- 1 packagephyllo dough(thawed)
- 1/2 cupolive oil(for brushing)
- 1/2 tspkosher salt
- 1/4 tspblack pepper
- 1/8 tspnutmeg
Unbaked triangles freeze beautifully for up to 3 months. Bake directly from frozen, adding 5 minutes to cooking time.
- 1Sauté onion in 2 tbsp olive oil until soft, about 5 minutes
- 2Add spinach and cook until wilted, then cool completely and squeeze out excess moisture
- 3Mix spinach with feta, scallions, dill, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg
- 4Cut phyllo into 3-inch wide strips and keep covered with damp towel
- 5Brush one strip with olive oil, place 1 tbsp filling at bottom corner
- 6Fold corner up to form a triangle, continue folding flag-style to end
- 7Place on baking sheet, brush tops with oil
- 8Bake at 375°F for 20-25 minutes until golden brown
Squeeze spinach completely dry to prevent soggy filling. Keep phyllo covered with a damp towel while working to prevent cracking.
Spanakopita — from the Greek spanaki (spinach) and pita (pie) — sits at the convergence of some of the oldest threads in Greek culinary history. The tradition of encasing greens and cheese in thin dough is ancient: the 5th-century BCE poet Philoxenos wrote of cheese pies served at banquets, and Greeks in rural regions, particularly the rugged northwest of Epirus, have long built their diet around wild foraged greens baked into pies. The word phyllo itself means "leaf" in Greek, an apt description for the paper-thin sheets of dough that are the pastry's defining feature. Spinach, native to Persia, arrived in Greece during the Byzantine Empire, carried westward by Arab traders who had first brought it to Spain. Once spinach reached Greek kitchens, it combined naturally with the local tradition of greens pies and with feta — the sheep's milk brined cheese that has been produced in Greece since at least the 8th century BCE, when Homer described a similar cheese in the Odyssey. Phyllo dough developed during the Byzantine era, with techniques likely influenced by the Ottoman yufka pastry, and transformed Greek pie-making from a rustic tradition into a refined craft. The Turkish ispanakli börek — a spinach and yufka pastry — reflects this shared culinary history between the two cuisines. After Greek independence in the 1820s-1830s, spanakopita was recognised as a defining national dish, sold fresh each morning from bakeries across the country and served at Easter celebrations, family gatherings, and everyday lunches alike.