Creamed spinach gratin with a seedy crumb topping

This comforting creamed spinach gratin is made with a creamy cauliflower and cashew-based sauce and topped with a golden seedy crumb.

5 from 3 votes

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Course: Snacks and sides

Cuisine: Gluten free, New Zealand, Vegan

Prep Time: 20

Cook Time: 1

Total Time: 1 20

Servings: 8

Calories: 147kcal

1 clove garlic, finely chopped or grated
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
500 g baby spinach, (1lb) or more (see recipe notes), washed and roughly chopped
Pinch nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup cashews
2 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast, (optional, or add more if you love it)
½ teaspoon salt
Black pepper
¼ cup gluten free bread crumbs, (I used storebought gluten free crumbs made from brown rice flour)
Olive oil, to drizzle (optional)

Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Add cauliflower and cook for 10 minutes, or until soft.
While the cauliflower is cooking, heat olive oil in a frypan (skillet). Add onion and garlic and cook over a low to medium heat until golden and soft, but not browned.
Drain cauliflower and add to your blender, along with cooked onion and garlic mixture, drained cashews, vegetable stock, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Blend until completely smooth.
This makes more sauce than you will need. Save the rest in the fridge or freezer to serve with pasta for a quick weeknight meal.

Put sunflower seeds, cashews, sesame seeds, nutritional yeast, salt and a good grind of pepper into a food processor. Blitz until an even crumb has formed - not too chunky. Add the gluten free crumbs last and pulse once or twice to combine.

Preheat oven to 220°C (430°F).
Heat olive oil in a large, deep frypan (skillet) or saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook for 5-10 minutes, until softened and fragrant.
Add the spinach to the pan. You might need to do this a few handfuls at a time, waiting for it to cook down a little before adding more. Once all the spinach is added, cook for a few minutes until all the spinach has wilted and some of the liquid has cooked off.
If there is a lot of moisture in the pan, use tongs to push the spinach to one side, drain the liquid to the other side and remove the spinach to a mixing bowl.
Mix the spinach with 1 cup of creamy cauliflower sauce, a pinch of nutmeg and ¼ teaspoon salt. The quantity of spinach to sauce is flexible, you want it to be soft and creamy but not too runny. Taste and adjust seasoning with more or salt or pepper as desired.
Tip the creamy spinach mixture into a casserole dish and smooth the service. Top with a generous layer of the crumb topping (you might not need it all) and use your fingers to dimple the surface. Drizzle with a little olive oil for extra colour and flavour, if you like.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until the topping is golden brown. Serve hot.

Serves 8 as a side dish as part of a larger meal, or 4 more generous serves.
You can use regular bread crumbs if you're not gluten free.
This dish uses a lot of spinach, but you could easily add more. I used two family sized extra large packs of baby spinach from the supermarket, but I could have easily increased it to three packages (750g or roughly 1.5lb), with a bit more sauce, and still fitted it all into my casserole dish. You could of course also use spinach from your garden.
If making ahead of time, prepare the sauce and spinach mixture then refrigerate. Add the crumb topping just before baking.
Nutrition information is estimate and does not include olive oil for drizzling.

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