Meatless Monday: Artichoke, Spinach and Goat Cheese Strata
Lately I can’t get enough goat cheese, so when I was rifling through a stack of magazine tear-outs and happened upon this Cooking Light recipe, I knew it would be our next Meatless Monday meal.
The first time I made it, I followed the directions exactly. It was good. Not great, but good. One of the main problems was that I couldn’t taste enough of the goat cheese. I knew it had potential to be delicious and perhaps even become a permanent dish in our meatless rotation, but it needed some help.
After adding more spices, a larger portion of goat cheese, and some spinach and extra veggies to up the nutrients, we’ve got a winner!
While we had it for dinner served alongside some sliced fresh tomatoes, it would be a wonderful brunch dish as well.
Artichoke, Spinach and Goat Cheese Strata
Serves 6. Recipe adapted from Cooking Light.
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 (12 oz) package frozen artichoke hearts*, thawed
2 cups roughly chopped fresh spinach
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp dried herbes de Provence
1 3/4 cups milk
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp crushed red pepper
4 large eggs
1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/2 (1-pound) loaf country-style white bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 5 cups)
Cooking spray
5 oz crumbled goat cheese, divided
Directions:
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add olive oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add onion, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in artichoke hearts, garlic, and spinach; cook for 8 minutes or until artichoke hearts begin to brown, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, and stir in herbes de Provence. Cool 10 minutes.
Combine milk, black pepper, salt, crushed red pepper, and eggs in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and bread; toss gently to combine. Stir in artichoke mixture, and let stand for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375°. Spoon half of bread mixture into an 8-inch square glass or ceramic baking dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with half of goat cheese, and top with remaining bread mixture. Sprinkle remaining half of goat cheese over top. Bake at 375° for 50 minutes or until browned and bubbly.
*I purchase my frozen artichoke hearts at Trader Joe's.
I’ve seen many variations of recipes for strata, but I’ve never actually tried to make it. For some reason, it always makes me think of the movie The Family Stone with Sarah Jessica Parker.
“Are those mushrooms?” “I DIDN’T KNOW!!!”
I’ve never seen the movie, but now I’m curious!
That sounds delicious! I think I’ll print this out and try it at some point soon.
This just made me weak in my knees. DONE.
Definitely going to have to try this one for my next brunch! Thanks for spicing up a CL recipe for us. :)
I have this recipe in my pile of magazine tear-outs, too! I’m so glad to hear it’s a good one. Since I’m a big fan of adding something green to my food, I really like your additions. I’ll be trying your adaptation sometime soon!
I actually think you could even double the spinach and it would be great!
I bought some Herbes de Provence just last month but never used it. Finally i have a great recipe for my herbs, haha. Thanks Beth, this really does look delicious. And yeah, i would’ve upped the goat cheese quotient too.
Hrm, kind of wondering if this might be good for a brunch this weekend…
Perfect for brunch. I think the next time I make it I’ll double up on the spinach too, because I hardly even noticed the 2 cups were in there. Can always use some extra spinach nutrients in my diet :-)
PS- you could also use a different kind of bread. I might try a whole grain version next time or a fancy one with sundried tomatoes or something….
Made this a couple nights ago with whole grain bread, some sundried tomatoes thrown in and it was DELISH! Thanks for never doing me wrong in the recipe department!
I bet this would be amazing with pasta. Can’t wait to try… sounds so yummy!
I love this recipe. I changed it quite a bit as well.
I added:
6 cups of spinach
8 oz of goat cheese
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 small can of sun dried tomatoes between the two layers of strata
used another half of bag of artichokes
My adaptation is very veggie!
This looks this delish ! I am definitely going to try this sometime soon. This may be a weird question but is this recipe do-able without the bread ?
well, it wouldn’t be a strata, but instead a quiche I guess? You’d probably need to up your number of eggs and probably decrease your milk to maybe a cup…
Can you substitute pickled artichokes for frozen ones?
That would be fine, although they will probably give it a slightly different flavor…
I made this today for a baby shower brunch. It was SO delicious and everyone (including me) went back to seconds! I love that there was a little goat cheese in pretty much every bite. Great recipe and really easy to make!
I am going to make this for a baby shower brunch and was wondering if you have doubled the recipe and used a 9 x13 dish?
I haven’t even doubled the recipe but it would probably be okay. My only worry would be that the center wouldn’t cook quite as quickly as the outside, so you might want to check that and may need to put it back in the oven for just a few extra minutes if that’s the case.
could you use canned artichokes?
It would probably be fine. I would just make sure to blot out as much of the excess moisture as possible before adding in!
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Oh my goodness! I am thrilled I came across this recipe! I just made a double batch, so I could make a pan of muffins as well as the 8×8 casserole. I didn’t have goat cheese, so I used Feta and an italian mix. Other than heaping teaspoons of herbs and red pepper, I followed the recipe. I was afraid when pouring into the pans that the mixture was too watery, (spinach and artichoke hearts), but all turned out well. Muffins cooked for 28 minutes at 350.
Thank you! Can’t wait to share this with my friends and family.
made this yesterday for a group of friends and everyone raved about it. Next time I will add more spinach, and maybe some sautéed mushrooms…delish!
Can this be made the night before?
Thanks
Can this be made the day before?