A simple side dish, these roasted pesto potatoes with fresh baby spinach leaves are so yummy! It only needs 4 ingredients and they are super quick to bake.
The boys are big fans of everything potato so these little bite size potato cubes went down a treat! I even managed to sneak in some super healthy baby spinach in there without too much of a second look. Bam Bam is getting pretty good at avoiding all edible green things lately so this was a real mummy achievement on my part. The weird thing is that his favourite colour is green, plate, cutlery and cup must always be green! Go figure! 3 year olds have their own logic on life which we will never fully understand.
What I love about simple, uncomplicated recipes like this, is that you don’t need many ingredients but the flavour level is high. There are only 4 ingredients in total and if you don’t fancy adding the spinach you have even less!
Adding grated parmesan as well as the pesto, makes these little cubes, super cheesy roast potatoes. Parmesan is so strong in it’s nutty, sweet flavour and adds an extra depth to this simple recipe.
These roasted pesto potatoes make a delicious side dish to many different things. You could try serving these little potato cubes with this lemon roast chicken. You can even be super fancy and make your own pesto at home.
How to Make Roasted Pesto Potatoes
Whilst these pesto potatoes with spinach are roasted in the oven, you can also have fried pesto potatoes by cooking everything in one pan and shallow frying them instead. Once you have boiled the potatoes and drained them, cover them in pesto and shallow fry them over a medium heat. Once they are crispy, add your baby spinach and mix it in. Cook until it’s wilted. Mix in your grated parmesan which will melt quickly. Remove from the heat and serve.
To make your roast potatoes more flavourful, after roasting them and adding the parmesan and wilted spinach, I recommend stirring in some extra pesto before serving them. This gives the roasted potatoes such a lovely basil fragrance with so much extra flavour on top.
When making any kind of roasted potato, I would always recommend using a floury variety of potato as they fluff up the best around the edges and make for a delicious crispy result. But you can use any potato you have. Baby potatoes will also taste great roasted. There is no need to peel them and I would recommend halving them rather than creating small cubes. You will also find that they need longer to roast in the oven, so add another 15 minutes to your cooking time at least, if you are making larger sizes of roast potatoes.
Always rinse your potatoes well before boiling. This removes the extra starch and creates a much crispier result which won’t stick to each other. If you have time, you can even soak your potato cubes in cold water with a little lemon juice and salt. You can leave them like this until you are ready to use them, just rinse them under running water until it is clear before boiling.
Whilst I prefer to use fresh baby spinach leaves in this recipe, you can substitute fresh with frozen spinach too, just defrost it in over a steamer the same way before adding it in. You can also leave it out completely.
Recipe FAQ
These roasted potato cubes are best eaten warm, but they can also be prepared and served cold too, if you’d prefer. The result and texture may differ but they will still be full of flavour.
Yes, you might find that they won’t be as crispy but you can still reheat them the following day. I recommend placing them in a baking tray and covering it with foil before heating through thoroughly.
Crispy Roasted Potatoes with Pesto and Spinach
Ingredients
- 500 g Potatoes
- 100 g Baby Spinach
- 2 tbsp Pesto, plus extra to serve (optional)
- 50 g Parmesan, plus extra to serve (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat Oven to 180C
- Peel and cut the potatoes into small cubes.
- Rinse the potato cubes well with cold running water, to rinse away the starch.
- Place the potatoes in a pan and cover with water, bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes until soft.
- Remove potatoes from the heat and drain.
- Cover the potatoes in the pesto.
- Place the potatoes on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, turning halfway through.
- Remove your potatoes from the oven and stir in the spinach.
- Sprinkle the parmesan oven the top.
- Return the potatoes and spinach to the oven and bake again for 1-2 minutes until the spinach has wilted and the cheese has melted.
- Remove the potatoes from the oven, place in a serving dish and stir in more pesto and parmesan if you wish.
- Season and serve.
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