{"id":396,"date":"2017-01-13T09:00:32","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T16:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?post_type=recipe&p=396"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:59:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:59:22","slug":"sformato-spinaci-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2017\/01\/13\/sformato-spinaci-recipe\/","title":{"rendered":"Sformato di Spinaci (Spinach Casserole)"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 13, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n

The word sformato in Italian means deformed or shapeless.\u00a0 When applied to food, standard Italian-English dictionaries\u00a0often translate it\u00a0as\u00a0pie or souffl\u00e9. It is none of the above.<\/p>\n

A sformato is most definitely not deformed or shapeless.\u00a0 In fact, a food historian described a sformato as \u201csomething that was cooked in the mould [sic] and then extracted from it\u201d (Alexandra Grigorieva, Naming<\/em> Authenticity and Regional Italian Cuisine<\/em> in Authenticity in the Kitchen: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2005<\/strong>, edited by Richard Hosking).\u00a0 Nor is a sformato really a pie or a souffl\u00e9 as those terms are usually used.\u00a0 It has no crust of any sort, as would a pie.\u00a0 It is not puffy like a souffle.\u00a0 Sometimes it doesn\u2019t even contain eggs.<\/p>\n

A sformato is most often made of vegetables, usually\u00a0bound with some combination of eggs, cream, cheese, and\/or b\u00e9chamel (balsamella or besciamella in Italian), and cooked in a baking dish. \u00a0I think the best English translation of the word is casserole.<\/p>\n

Sformato di Spinaci, spinach sformato (or, reluctantly, spinach casserole), is one of those dishes that has iconic status in my husband\u2019s family. \u00a0Like Merluzzo in Umido<\/a>, the recipe came from Italy with his grandmother whom we called Nonni.\u00a0 Nonni is one of those made up words that sometimes take hold in a family based on the mispronunciations of little kids.\u00a0\u00a0The Italian word for grandmother is Nonna.\u00a0 However, Nonni is to Nonna as Gramma is to Grandmother.<\/p>\n

Just as Pasta Ascuitta <\/a>has only one meaning in my family, Sformato has only one meaning in my husband’s.\u00a0 If you simply say \u201csformato,\u201d everyone knows you mean spinach sformato, and not, for example, cauliflower sformato.<\/p>\n

I first had sformato at Christmas Dinner at my in-law\u2019s house in 1989.\u00a0 Although I had been cooking northern Italian food since 1973 based largely on Marcella Hazan’s wonderful cookbooks, that Christmas was really the beginning of my learning to make some of my husband’s family\u2019s northern Italian favorites.\u00a0 It\u2019s really a whole different taste profile from the southern Italian dishes I grew up with.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve actually taken a heretical twist with my interpretation of Nonni\u2019s sformato. I\u2019ve added a little balsamella for moisture. This was most definitely not in the original, though it is not an uncommon addition to\u00a0sformato. If you want to make the original version, just leave out the balsamella.\u00a0 It will be a little drier.\u00a0 You might want to not squeeze the spinach quite as tightly if you don’t include the balsamella.

<\/div>
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n
\n \n <\/div>\n

Sformato di Spinaci (Spinach Sformato or Spinach Casserole)<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n \n
<\/div>\n
Nonni always made this with ground beef but Italian sausage, casing removed and crumbled, works really well (a bit of southern Italian heresy creeping in!). It can also be made without meat, but the amount of spinach should be increased by an additional 10 oz. to a total of 30 oz. I have occasionally used fresh spinach but, honestly, frozen chopped spinach works just fine. I doubt you could reliably tell the difference in a side-by-side comparison of fresh vs. frozen spinach in this dish.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n Print Recipe<\/a>\n Pin Recipe<\/a>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
Prep Time <\/span>45 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Cook Time <\/span>1 hour<\/span><\/span> hr<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Total Time <\/span>2 hours<\/span><\/span> hrs<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Servings: <\/span>8<\/span> people<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/g>\n\n\n\n<\/clipPath>\n<\/defs>\n<\/svg>\n<\/span> Ingredients<\/a>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/g>\n\n\n\n<\/clipPath>\n<\/defs>\n<\/svg>\n<\/span> Method<\/a>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span> Notes<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n

Ingredients
<\/div>