Clean Eating Spinach Dip Recipe

by Jimmie

Spinach dip made even more healthy with real ingredients -- no preservatives or artificial flavorings. This clean eating spinach dip is made from scratch with nutritious foods.

Spinach dip sounds like a healthy appetizer, right? We all know that spinach is healthy. But if you look carefully at the ingredients in the traditional recipe, you will realize that the chemicals in that packet of vegetable soup mix and mayonaise are not at all healthy.

However, spinach dip can easily be remade into a clean eating version with no processed foods. As a bonus, using fresh vegetables in the dip increases the nutrients and fiber while adding fresh flavors.

A Healthy Version of a Classic Party Food

Clean Eating Spinach Dip
Spinach Dip with Cracker
Spinach Dip with Cracker

Ingredients in Clean Eating Spinach Dip

  • 1 bunch green onions
  • ½ fresh bell pepper (red, yellow, orange, or green)
  • 1 teaspoon of minced garlic
  • 12 oz. frozen spinach, thawed
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • ½ cup sour cream
  • ½ cup plain yogurt

Assemble Your Ingredients and Tools

Fresh Vegetables Make it Healthy
Spinach Dip Ingredients
Spinach Dip Ingredients

How to Make Clean Eating Spinach Dip

Step by Step With Tips

The Spinach

Frozen spinach still retains most of the nutrients of fresh spinach, so don't worry about using it in this recipe. In fact, frozen spinach often has more vitamin C than its fresh counterpart. Thaw the spinach in a small colander so the water can drain out. Then press it to get the remaining moisture out. I like to use a bowl that fits inside of my colander to push on the spinach. 

The Fresh Veggies

Wash and cut the bell pepper and green onions. For this tutorial, I used yellow and orange peppers. But you can use any color you have on hand. Bell peppers are full of nutrition! 

Put the vegetables into a food processor. I use the Ninja Chopper. Pulse it until it becomes a fine mince. See the photo for what it looks like.

Put the pureed vegetables into a mixing bowl and add the fresh minced garlic.

Note About Flavors

If you are used to a clean eating lifestyle, the sharp flavors of raw onion, garlic, and pepper are probably delightful to you. But if you are new to eating fresh vegetables, you may find the onion and pepper flavor too powerful. Certainly the traditional spinach dip recipe has a more mellow onion flavor because it uses onion powder instead of fresh onions.

The solution is to simply saute the vegetables (before you puree them) in a small amount of olive oil. Cooking them will mellow the flavors.

The Dairy

For my recipe, I use yogurt instead of the mayonnaise normally called for. The texture is closer to mayonnaise than sour cream, but you could simply double the amount of sour cream. You can also use homemade mayo. At any rate, you need a full cup of dairy -- sour cream, yogurt, mayonnaise, or a mixture.

Mix

Mix the vegetables, dairy products, and spices together in a mixing bowl. This recipe will probably need more salt that is called for, so do several taste tests to get it right. The soup mix in the traditional recipe is mostly salt, so it's not surprising that you want to add a lot of salt to this healthy makeover. 

Other spices you can add in are

  • dill
  • thyme
  • basil
  • cayenne pepper.

Add no more than a teaspoon at a time, stir, and taste. Remember that the flavor will improve as the dip sits, so try to plan to make this spinach dip at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours before you want to eat it. Stir it again and do more taste testing right before eating it. You may find it needs even more salt or some other favorite spice.

Making Clean Eating Spinach Dip

Chop the Peppers and Green Onions
Chop the Peppers and Green Onions
Veggie Puree in the Ninja
Veggie Puree in the Ninja
Add Garlic
Add Garlic
Finished Dip
Finished Dip

Are You Willing to Try Clean Eating Spinach Dip?

Would you try this clean eating recipe for the sake of health?

Serving Spinach Dip

For a low-carb diet, serve spinach dip with fresh vegetables:

  • broccoli spears
  • baby carrots
  • celery sticks
  • pepper slices 
  • whole radishes
  • zuchini slices

If carbs are not a concern, serve clean eating spinach dip with crackers or tortilla chips.

Serve Clean Eating Spinach Dip at Your Next Party

Ready to Eat
Ready to Eat

More Clean Eating and Healthy Eating

How to cook homemade blueberry muffins from scratch using whole wheat flour and honey. These muffins are clean eating and full of nutrients.
Love sausage balls but hate the nitrates in sausage and the weird fats in processed baking mixes? Make sausage balls the healthy clean eating way with this recipe and tutorial.
This delicious gelatin salad is made with fresh cranberries, canned pineapple, celery, and nuts. It is more like a relish than a typical congealed salad.
Updated: 02/24/2012, Jimmie
 
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Comments

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Mira on 08/14/2012

Oh, this has got to be good! I will certainly try your spinach dip -- thank you! :-))

Marie on 12/31/2011

I really love spinach but if I made your Spinach Dip, I would probably eat all of it which wouldn't be quite so healthy!

ethelsmith on 12/31/2011

Love the lay out of this page. I also love spinach, peppers etc and ;ike the sound of this healthy dip. Thanks

Jimmie on 12/31/2011

Dustytoes, Yes, I love my Ninja. Because it works as both blender and food processor, it's a favorite. I like keeping kitchen tools simple and not having a gadget for every single process. But my Ninja is a keeper -- an absolute necessity.

dustytoes on 12/31/2011

I don't have parties much, but I could eat this clean spinach dip myself as a meal - (well not the whole thing)! I need a food processor too... you like yours?

Digby_Adams on 12/30/2011

Oh my goodness - All these delicious food hubs. I'm going to make this and the sausage balls for New Year's Eve. I also think this will be great all summer long - as a way to use all of those garden vegetables. The spices sound delicious as well!

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