Bacon & Parmesan Spinach {3 WW+ Side Dish}

We purchased a large "tub" of spinach from Costco the last time we were there and I was trying to figure out ways to prepare it. I was just going to use it for spinach salads but for some reason come lunchtime they never seemed appealing to me... so we were left with a large tub of spinach :)

Enter tonight's dinner... I hadn't taken anything out of the fridge and we hadn't been to the grocery store in a while so it was going to be a pantry dinner night. I scoured the pantry, cupboards and fridge to take inventory of what we had and came up with an amazing side that has quite a few wonderful ingredients (including BACON! How can you go wrong with bacon?!).

I searched Weight Watchers online for point friendly recipes and settled on one called Spinach with Parmesan-Bread Crumbs. It looked simple enough... but just didn't have a wow factor. So I decided to spruce it up a bit and am quite pleased with how it turned out. Joseph even ate his portion (with minimal complaints).The original recipe was only 2 WW+ points so if you don't have an extra point just omit the bacon.

Inspiration: Weight Watchers

Bacon and Parmesan Spinach

• 2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
• 1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs, chopped coarsely
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 3 pieces bacon (I used pre-cooked bacon)
• 1 1/2 pounds spinach, washed & well-drained

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat; add bread crumbs and cook, stirring often, until golden, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in Parmesan cheese. Spoon bread crumbs into a small bowl; set aside.

Heat remaining oil in same skillet. Add bacon & garlic, cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds (if using raw bacon, do not add oil & just cook bacon until crisp and set aside... toss with spinach at the end). Gradually add half of spinach to skillet, tossing mixture and adding more spinach as some of it cooks down. Continue cooking and tossing, until spinach is wilted and tender, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from skillet and repeat with remaining spinach.

Transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle with crumbs. Or toss with half of crumbs and sprinkle remaining crumbs over each serving. Yields about 3/4 cup spinach and 2 tablespoons crumbs per serving.

I served with whole wheat spaghetti & tomato basil marinara sauce. I even added the left over spinach to the left over spaghetti for lunch tomorrow. YUM!

4 Servings | 3 WW+ Points