Substitute Spinach With Brussels Sprouts in All Your Hot Sauces
People like to bury vegetables in cheese. Why not? This makes them taste better, and is the only thing that can turn previously frozen moist spinach and soft canned artichokes into a sauce that is truly inhaled at holiday gatherings. People don’t put it in their mouth because they like frozen spinach, they put it in their mouth because they like cheese (and, to a lesser extent, bread or chips).
The hot spinach and artichoke sauce is obviously very good no matter which spinach or artichoke product you use, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon. You can use Brussels sprouts instead of spinach and your sauce will be better for it. Before you start yelling at me for perverting the classic (which I usually do), let me state my (very smart) case.
Sprouts in season
Winter has come for our Brassica oleracea! You can find tall, healthy cabbage stalks at the grocery store and they just seem like a holiday meal: spinach is the spring leaf and Brussels sprouts are the winter leaves. It’s not really science, but it’s pretty close. Replacing spinach with Brussels sprouts will give you a seasonally appropriate sauce.
You can brown the Brussels sprouts
Which is better: soft thawed leaf or crispy toasted crispy leaf? I think the second, my friends. The spinach doesn’t turn brown or crunchy, it just gets moist and fine. On the other hand, Brussels sprouts browns quite well with a little oil (or duck fat) and retains much more of their original volume than spinach, which might just as well be called “incredibly shrinking green stuff.”
Rather than defrosting the spinach and mixing it with the cream cheese, which is very soft, chop the sprouts, sauté them in some fat over high heat until they are crispy around the edges, and then combine them with the cream cheese. Your sauce will have better flavor and more textural contrast. (Plus, Brussels sprouts have a more interesting and strong flavor. Sorry, but it’s true!)
This is a light submarine
The best news is that you don’t need a completely new sauce recipe as you just need to use the same amount of sprouts – cup by cup – as you use the spinach. In fact, I could even add more Brussels sprouts because I really like this cabbage and the sauces are a very gentle recipe. It doesn’t look like cake or anything that depends on the exact ratios.