Hot spinach and artichoke dip with cheese ingredients:

• 1 can of artichoke hearts (buying them canned decreases preparation time), very well drained, chopped small. Frozen artichoke hearts can be used (thaw them before cooking)
• 1 cup frozen spinach, thawed, well drained, chopped
• 8 ounce cream cheese
• 2-3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated
• 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise (get light mayo if you want a healthier version of this dip recipe)
• 1/2 cup sour cream (can be replaced with yogurt)
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled, minced (if you don’t have fresh garlic, you can replace it with garlic powder)
• Herbs and spices according to taste (use either basil or dried chili peppers flakes or parsley)
• Salt and pepper, according to taste

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 35 minutes

Serves: 8

Cooking procedure:

First of all, you need to preheat the oven to 350 F. Mix all creamy ingredients together in a bowl (the cream cheese, the sour cream, the mayonnaise), then add the spices, the garlic, the salt and the pepper and mix everything very well. Then add the spinach and the artichokes, stirring gently until you get a homogeneous mixture. Don’t stir too much, because if you do, you’ll transform the spinach and the artichoke pieces into a paste. If you don’t mind that, then it’s fine, but if you want to feel the separate foods textures, you’ll have to be gentle when stirring. Pour the composition in a baking dish previously greased with a teaspoon of olive oil. Make sure that the mixture doesn’t fill the baking dish up to the edge. Bake the food for 30 minutes, then take it out of the oven, top it with the grated Parmesan cheese and let it bake again for more 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Health tip: if you want to decrease the amount of fats in this spinach artichoke dip, you can leave out the sour cream and the cheese completely.