Spinach Fatayer

The best recipe for spinach fatayer with an easy homemade fatayer dough, giving you Lebanese spinach triangles you’ll love. Middle Eastern spinach pies are healthy little parcels that pack so much flavor and nutrients and come together really quickly. Step by step photos and recipe below!

What are fatayer?

Fatayer are savory pies, common in the Middle East. They are usually stuffed with cheese, spinach or meat.

They are typically served for breakfast, or for a nice light lunch or snack. The fatayer dough is a yeasted dough made with olive oil. The dough is really nice and versatile, giving way to any option of fillings.

Spinach fatayer are a classic, also known as fatayer sabanekh, and they are one of my absolute favorites.

What makes these spinach fatayer so good?

The fatayer dough comes together quickly, doesn’t take too long to rise, and is very easy to work with. No stand mixer required!

Middle Eastern spinach pies have a really distinctive and delicious lemony spinach filling with onion and sumac. They are a flavor you’ll fall in love with and won’t easily forget!

No cooking is required for the filling. Some people cook the onion before mixing it with the filling, but I don’t see any need. This makes it much easier, and the onions retain a little bit of a bite.

The filling is very simple to make and versatile too. It makes the best Lebanese spinach pies, full of nutrients.

These are so kid friendly, and freezer friendly, making them a great thing to have on hand for lunchboxes.

Ingredients you need for spinach fatayer:

For the dough:

Water- lukewarm is best, but this recipe is forgiving so you don’t need to worry too much about achieving a specific temperature.

Instant yeast

Sugar

Flour– All purpose plain flour is all you need.
Olive Oil– I like using the best quality I can get, because the flavor is really apparent in the dough.

Salt

For the spinach filling:

Fresh spinach: Regular spinach (not baby), that you’ve washed thoroughly, chopped, and squeezed the extra water out of. You can also substitute frozen spinach that you squeezed out as much moisture as you can. It’ll still be very tasty!

Red onion: or a yellow onion, but there is something about a red onion with spinach that’s just perfect.

Sumac: Sumac is a tart Middle Eastern spice, that’s a beautiful bright red or magenta color. It’s very common in the Middle East and has this really specific tangy/tart/sharp taste. It’s become quite commonly found in supermarkets, especially speciality markets. You’ll find this either in the spice section or the international foods section. If you don’t find it, this is definitely available online at Amazon.

How to make the best Lebanese fatayer:

This method makes sure that the flour and water incorporate easily and smoothly with the yeast.

• In a large bowl, mix together about half the flour, with most the water, the yeast, and sugar until combined. Set aside for 10 minutes or until bubbling and active.
• After 10 minutes, to this bowl add the olive oil, remaining flour and water, and salt. Mix with a wooden spoon until well combined, then knead a few times with your hands to make sure all the flour is mixed in and the dough forms into a ball.
• Cover and let it rise in a warm place or 45 minutes-1 hour until the dough is puffy and nearly doubled.
• Divide the dough into 16-18 balls, 40-45 grams each if you want to be precise. Let the balls of dough rest for another 10 minutes before forming into the spinach pies. Make your filling and preheat the oven to 400F (205C) while you wait.
• Mix the washed, chopped spinach with the onion, sumac, salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil. Taste and adjust seasoning.
• Line baking pans with parchment paper. Roll out the dough balls into 5 cm circles.
• Place a big heaped tablespoon of spinach filling in the center of a dough circle. Fold together two sides and pinch to close, bringing up third side to make a triangle. Pinch tightly to close so triangles don’t open up, some dough should overlap in the center. It’s probably easiest to this directly on the baking sheet so you don’t need to transfer the filled pastries.
• Place the pastries on the prepared baking sheets, brush lightly with olive oil and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

Watch how to make them in the recipe video in the recipe card!

Tips for making the fatayer dough recipe:

• If you haven’t used your yeast for a while, test it! Add 1 teaspoon of sugar and 2 1/4 teaspoon of yeast to 1/4 cup warm water. Check on it after 10 minutes. If it’s bubbling and smells yeasty, it’s still active and ready to go.
• Knead the dough until the flour is totally combined. This shouldn’t take too long at all with our two step flour addition process. This will ensure the gluten in the fatayer dough develops well to give us that nice chew to the fatayer.
• Let the dough rise in a warm environment, this helps the yeast works better. I actually love placing my bowl of dough inside a turned off washer or dryer. It’s the perfect warm enclosed environment.
• Yeast will do different things in different environments, so keep an eye on how the dough is rising. If it doesn’t look any different after an hour, allow it to rise for another 30 minutes or so.

What to serve fatayer with:

Fatayer bi sabanekh are delicious in and of their own. I like to serve them with mint tea. A lot of people enjoy these with a side of yogurt, you can even dip the fatayer in yogurt.

You can have a really nice breakfast board with the fatayer piled in the center, and olives, pickles, and spreads surrounding them.

Storing leftover spinach fatayer:

Leftover fatayer will last in the fridge 3-4 days in a tightly covered container. Reheat in an oven or gently in the microwave- they’ll taste better reheated in the oven.

Lebanese fatayer freeze so well. Whatever you don’t think you’re going to eat over the next couple of days, pop onto a baking sheet into the freezer in a single layer until frozen solid, then pile them together in a freezer bag or container.

You can reheat straight from frozen, in the oven or in the microwave. They’ll last in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Making the spinach filling in advance:

You can prep the spinach filling and keep it tightly covered in the fridge for up to 2 days before filling the fatayer. The flavors will actually meld together and strengthen during this time!

Making the dough in advance:

After the first rise, put the dough in the fridge tightly covered. The next day, take it out and let it come to room temperature before dividing the dough into balls and rising for another 10-15 minutes.

Recipe tips:

• Squeeze out as much water from the spinach before mixing with the rest of the ingredients, to avoid too much moisture in the pastry dough that’ll lead to soggy spinach pies.
• Add the spinach filling to the dough circles directly on the parchment paper lined baking sheet, to avoid having to transfer the delicate stuffed spinach triangles.
• To stop the triangles from opening up in the middle while baking, don’t overfill with stuffing. Make sure you get a good seal, when pinching the seams closed. Make sure your hands aren’t wet when pinching the dough because that moisture could lead to the pastry opening up.

Recipe FAQs:

For related Middle Eastern recipes:

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