Spinach Madeleine Recipe

The Spinach Madeleine Recipe is one of the most beloved recipes from the Baton Rouge Junior League River Road Recipes collection. A unique blend of creamy spinach and spicy cheese, the Spinach Madeleine has made its way onto South Louisiana holiday tables for decades.

 So beloved is this Spinach concoction, that recently our River Road Recipe committee highlighted it for our newsletter’s holiday cover and feature for inRegister magazine!

Here’s how we presented it in my dining room:

As beloved as the recipe is, it is also antiquated as most recipes originating in the 1960’s tend to be. If you search online for the original, you’ll see about a dozen ways to replace the now discontinued Jalapeno cheese roll. I’ve even seen it pop up on Chef John Folse’s website using a spicy Velveeta and most recently in Miss Kay’s (Duck Dynasty) cookbook. Her version uses 6 ounces of original or Mexican Velveeta.

 

I made my own substitutes and also decreased the amount of roux because I only used 1 package of spinach. The original recipe calls for 2 packages but it doesn’t indicate size. I went with a 1-pound bag of frozen spinach and decreased some of the roux to make sure my proportions were ok. For reference, Miss Kay’s version uses 1-10 ounce packages of frozen spinach.

See?  There’s so very many ways to modify the original recipe to maintain its place on your holiday table.

I’ve never had Mrs. Reymond-Wright’s version and unfortunately I’ll probably never be able to compare the original to my updated version but I will say that I don’t eat spinach and this is a holiday staple in my home now. It’s that good. Perhaps it’s disguising the true benefits of the spinach, but when it comes to the holidays, I’m ok with that. And if it can get me to eat vegetables, then by golly, I’m ok with that too.

Have you ever heard of Spinach Madeleine? What about the story about where the spinach dish originally originated? Our local newspaper ran a story earlier in the year on the woman behind the famed dish. Read about it here.