Spinach Artichoke Cups
Quick and Delicious
I’m about to toss out a trick that caterers across the world don’t want you to know.
You ready? It’s this:
You can make stuff look classy by putting it in a baked cup.
It’s true that stuff is a lot easier to eat when it’s in an edible cup, but I’ve never really understood why restaurants and catering companies think they can charge MORE just because they are putting something in a silly baked cup.
But I digress.
Turns out that it’s dumb simple to make and fill baked cups with delicious things.
Spinach Artichoke Cups
Yield: 18-24 cups
Prep Time:
Total Time:
Ingredients:
1 large bunch of spinach, blanched and chopped (or one package of frozen spinach)
1 can artichoke hearts in water, drained and chopped
1/3 Cup mayonnaise
1/4 Cup sour cream
1 Tablespoon hot sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lemon, zest only
1/2 Cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and pepper
Wonton Wrappers
Vegetable Oil
Helpful Equipment:
Muffin Tin
Microplane
Directions:
1) Lightly oil a muffin tin and stuff a wonton wrapper into each cup. Shape the wrapper up against the edges of the cups.
2) Bake wrappers at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. let cook and then take out the cups.
3) For filling, blanch spinach in salted boiling water for 30 seconds. Then remove and let cool on a few paper towels. Use paper towels to press out as much liquid as possible.
4) Drain artichokes and roughly chop them. Once chopped, also press them with a few paper towels to remove extra liquid.
5) Mix spinach and artichokes with other filling ingredients.
6) Fill cups with spinach mixture.
7) Store any leftovers separately.
The Filling
The thing to remember about this filling is that it’s a filling and not a dip. So I cut way down on the creamy stuff. You basically just want enough mayo and sour cream to keep the filling together.
Not Pictured: Parm cheese
When it comes to prepping the spinach, just toss it in some salted boiling water and let it cook for about 30 seconds. Then pull it out and let it cool briefly on some paper towels.
Once the spinach is cool enough to work with, press it with the paper towels to remove as much liquid as possible. Then just chop it up!
You could use frozen in a pinch.
The artichokes are just as easy to prepare. Just drain the can of artichoke hearts and roughly chop up the artichoke hearts.
Important Step: After you dice up the artichoke hearts, again press them with a few paper towels like you did with the spinach. The artichokes retain a lot of water and if you don’t press out most of it, your filling will be super-watery.
Once your spinach and artichoke are pressed, you can mix them all together!
Just good flavors.
There’s a lot of great flavors in this filling, but the two that really pop in my mind are the lemon zest and the garlic.
I used a microplane to zest my lemon and very finely grate my clove of garlic.
Remember when you’re zesting citrus that you just want the outside layer of rind. If you get into the white part, it becomes very bitter.
Just the zest!
Just grab a bowl and mix the spinach and artichoke with all the other filling ingredients.
It’ll probably need a good pinch of salt, but should be pretty much ready to go!
Are you feeling the filling?
Making the Cups
There’s no magic here unfortunately. It’s just ridiculously easy to make these.
All you need is some wonton wrappers, a muffin tin, and a bit of vegetable oil.
The multi purpose muffin tin.
Lightly oil each muffin tin with a bit of oil.
Then kind of just form a wonton wrapper into the tin. Don’t worry too much about making them pretty or uniform. All of the little folds end up getting really crispy and are fantastic.
Ready for a bake.
Bake these guys at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. You could go a bit longer if you like your more crispy. I baked mine for 15 minutes for a really crispy final product.
Nice and crispy.
The cups should pop right out of the tin without any problem and once they are cool enough to handle, you can fill them up! I recommend about a tablespoon and a half per cup.
CHOMP.
If you have any leftovers they both keep fine, but just store them separately. If you fill the cups and store them, then the filling will make the cups kind of soggy.
This is a really delicious appetizer that really takes only a few minutes to make.
Whether you want to start a catering company or just impress the friends and family, this is a winner.
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I stopped by just to say this, Nick.
Yes.
Yesyesyesyesyesyes. Caterers do it because they know our little brains find tiny foods in crunchy things to be delicious. Because they are. This is the good stuff.
I still eat my spinach-artichoke manually – by the ladleful in a shameful corner. But, it's one of those amazing things with great spring/fall flavors. Especially fall as it gets a little cooler.
Just to reiterate: Yes!
[Reply]
I love pretending like I'm fancy and rolling up little bite-sized treats into won tons. Once I made apple cinnamon cups for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law (before we were married) and I'm pretty sure they went out and bought the ring the next day and told my husband the deal.
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[Reply]
Yes! Finally a great excuse to buy Wonton skins! Love the mixture recipe, as the lemon adds a nice zing, I'm sure! @Neal… I'm right there with you in the corner of shame re: eating this stuff by the spoon fulls!
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[Reply]
Looks delish Nick! What about par baking the skins, adding the filling and finish baking for a warm appetizer — do you think that would work?
[Reply]
Ellen Barnes replied: — May 11th, 2012 @ 4:35 pm
I was thinking the exact same thing because I think that dip is better when it has been heated. I will let you know!
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Ha! I love making things that I can pretend I spent forever slaving over. Next time I have people over I'm totally making these like, "Oh yes, it's something, you know I just kinda threw together" followed by their gasps of amazement lol
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Wonderful post to get some quick and tasty recipes.I appreciate the sharing.I love to get some unique food for my family on weekend.Book marked and thanks.
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This is too delicious! And, I used mini muffin tins. Burned 5 of the won tons, the time for the mini's should be about 10 minutes, (watch them!) GREAT recipe, what a fabulous combo of flavors in the filling. Love it!
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I love the idea! I made those with smoked salmon filling – people loved them :)
[Reply]
Beautiful recipe, i love making small appatizers in the pancake tin!
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Hi!
This looks lovely. Your photos are just beautiful.
Can I make these wanton wraps at home ? (not only since I don’t get them where I’m from, but also because I’d like to make them with whole-wheat flour instead)
[Reply]
Nick replied: — November 12th, 2012 @ 5:38 pm
Hmm… I’ve never made them from scratch honestly. Google around and you can probably find a decent recipe that you could alter for whole wheat. I wouldn’t use all whole wheat to start… good luck!
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