Converting raw to cooked spinach volumes
Fresh spinach shrinks dramatically when cooked. Planning recipes requires generous allowance: raw volume is many times the cooked yield.
General conversion guideline:
- About 10 ounces (roughly a large bag or 10–12 cups loosely packed raw baby spinach) yields roughly 1–1.5 cups cooked.
- As a rule of thumb, 3–4 cups of raw baby spinach cook down to about 1 cup.
- For mature spinach with thicker leaves, expect slightly less shrinkage, but it still collapses significantly.
Practical tips:
- When a recipe calls for cups of cooked spinach, start with a large handful per serving and be prepared to batch-cook.
- If substituting frozen spinach, note that a 10-ounce package of frozen, thawed, and drained spinach commonly equals about 1 to 1.5 cups cooked.
These rules help you shop and prep accurately so final dishes have the intended balance of greens.