Video:How to Make a Warm Spinach Salad

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Transcript:How to Make a Warm Spinach Salad

Hey guys, Jonathon Stewart here for About.com. If you're a fan of popular culture, you'll know that the oldest trick in the book when it comes to getting your kids to eat their spinach is to tell them it'll give them big muscles like Popeye, or, more like abnormally large, tattooed forearms.

But give this recipe a shot for a warm spinach salad, and you won't need anything in your bag of tricks, except for a fork.

Warm Spinach Salad Ingredients

For today, here's what you'll need. Check it out:

• about 5 ounces of washed, flat leaf baby spinach
• 2 hard-boiled eggs
• 2 tablespoons of virgin coconut oil
• 4 slices of turkey bacon
• 1 diced red onion
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons whipped cream cheese
• 3 tablespoons crumbled goat cheese
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• sea salt
• fresh ground pepper

The Iron Content in Spinach

A funny thing about spinach is that up until the 1980s, when the mistake was verified, the commonly accepted iron content of this leafy green wonder was 10 times the amount it actually contains.

This may have been fodder for the creation of our aforementioned muscle-y sailor man. Lore has it that in 1870, a Dr. E. von Wolf misplaced a decimal as he was summing up his findings on the nutritional content of spinach for publication. Whoops.

Prepare the Spinach Salad Ingredients

Start by placing your spinach in a large bowl off to the side and crumbling your two hard-boiled eggs on top.

While you warm a pan on your stove top on medium high, cut your turkey bacon into bits. Add your coconut oil to the pan, let it liquefy, toss in your bacon, and cook for about three minutes.

Then add in your onions and garlic and continue to cook for another two to three minutes, or until the bacon begins to crisp.

Reduce the Fat in the Spinach Salad

This recipe is a little fat-heavy, but there are a couple very easy ways to keep it reasonable. Try pitching the yolks from your eggs and using low or reduced-fat cream cheese or goat cheese.

And remember, even though spinach isn't as iron-filled as Dr. Wolf once thought, it is low-calorie and chock full of vitamins A, C, E, K, magnesium and antioxidants, which you can't say about a Crunch Wrap Supreme.

Prepare the Salad Dressing

Reduce your burner to a simmer, and stir in your honey, vinegar, cream cheese, goat cheese, and Dijon until you've got a uniformly creamy consistency.

Remove your pan from the heat and let it cool for about two minutes, then drizzle onto your spinach and egg.

Toss the Warm Spinach Salad

Immediately toss the salad - adding salt and pepper to taste - and watch as the spinach wilts just slightly, bringing out its delicious flavor without sacrificing an ounce of nutrition.

This wonderful treat should be served immediately, and makes about four portions. Wow! Thanks for watching. To learn more, visit us on the Web at food.about.com.