One of my most vivid early food memories is my first taste of spanakopita at a Greek Church festival in Queens, N.Y., where I grew up. I remember hesitating to try it at first, like most kids when they encounter new foods, but with that first bite I was changed forever.
From that moment on I would seek to relive that unexpectedly blissful experience of the shatteringly crisp, airy dough enveloping the richly savory, perfectly salty, and fragrant spinach and cheese filling.
To this day I make some version of spanakopita regularly, except in the summer, when I am loath to turn on my oven or spend much time in the kitchen at all. My cravings for it are year-round though, which is why I spun its unmistakable flavor into this easy, breezy pasta dinner, which is done in the time it takes to cook the pasta, and requires very little prep work.
To make the sauce, you first sauté garlic and scallion in olive oil, then add baby spinach to the skillet, handfuls at a time, allowing what’s in the pan to wilt a bit before adding the next batch. It will seem like a huge amount of spinach at first, but go with it — its volume shrinks quickly and dramatically. (The spinach before-and-after never stops amazing me.)
After just a few minutes, when the spinach is wilted but still bright green, you add a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and pepper and remove it from the heat until the pasta is ready. The cooked pasta is tossed into the skillet along with a generous amount of crumbled feta cheese, fresh dill and enough reserved pasta water to loosen everything and encourage a creamy sauce to form as the feta melts.
Garnished with some more dill, feta crumbles and scallion greens, it’s a pasta dinner that’s simultaneously rich and fresh, a summery realization of spanakopita dreams.
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