Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines →
Soggy spanakopita is not a phyllo problem. It is a water problem, and it is entirely solvable.
A pound of thawed frozen spinach can release a substantial amount of liquid, but the exact volume varies by brand and thawing. The useful cue is the finished spinach: dense, compact and no longer leaving a wet mark on the board.
Get that right and everything else about these is easy. They are the classic Greek spinach and feta filling, wrapped in strips of phyllo at chaotic angles so they read as bandages, with two black-olive eyes pressed into a deliberate gap. Makes twenty-four, and they freeze raw and bake straight from frozen, which is why they are the single most useful thing in this whole cluster if you are hosting.
I make a double batch in the first week of October and forget about them until someone arrives.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Spanakopita Mummies Recipe Card
Spanakopita Mummies
Ingredients
Method
- Squeeze the spinach. Put the thawed spinach in a clean tea towel, gather the corners and twist firmly over a bowl. Continue until the spinach forms a dense ball and no longer leaves a wet mark; the extracted volume will vary.
- Soften the onion in the olive oil over medium-low heat for 6 to 8 minutes until translucent, not coloured. Add the scallions for the last minute. Cool.
- Combine the squeezed spinach, cooled onion, crumbled feta, dill, parsley, beaten egg, lemon zest, nutmeg and a great deal of black pepper. Taste before adding any salt.
- Chill the filling 20 minutes. It firms up and becomes much easier to shape.
- Heat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line two trays with parchment.
- Shape the filling into 24 small logs, about 2 inches long, on a tray. Wet hands help.
- Stack the phyllo and cut the stack lengthwise into strips about 1¼ inches wide. Keep them under a damp — not wet — tea towel.
- Brush a strip with butter and wrap it around a log at an angle, tucking the ends under. Add a second and third strip at different angles, leaving a gap of about half an inch near one end for the eyes.
- Brush each wrapped mummy generously all over with butter. Every exposed edge, or it burns dry.
- Bake 22 to 25 minutes until deep golden and blistered, turning the trays once.
- Press two tiny black-olive pieces into the gap as soon as they come out, while the pastry is still soft enough to hold them.
Nutrition
Notes
Tried this recipe?
Let us know how it was!Why This Recipe Actually Works
- Makes twenty-four from one batch, which is a party’s worth from one afternoon.
- They freeze raw and bake from frozen, which is the whole reason to choose these over anything else.
- The bandage wrapping rewards imprecision, so there is no skill barrier.
- It is real spanakopita underneath, so people ask for it in February.
- Two tiny black-olive pieces are the entire decorating step.
The Freezer Case, Stated Plainly
Almost nothing else in Halloween cooking gives you this. Twenty-four hot, crisp, genuinely good appetizers, made three weeks in advance, requiring nothing on the night but an oven and thirty minutes. If you make one thing from this site ahead of time, make these. [LIVE — /make-ahead-halloween-party-food/]
Essential Ingredients
Spinach. Frozen chopped spinach is the tested convenience choice here — it is cheaper, already chopped, and once squeezed it gives a denser filling. A pound of frozen replaces about two pounds of fresh.
Feta. Greek, block, in brine. Crumbled by hand rather than bought pre-crumbled, which is coated in anti-caking agents.
Dill. Not optional and not replaceable. Dill is what makes spanakopita taste like spanakopita rather than like spinach in pastry. Use more than feels sensible.
Scallions and onion, both. The onion softened for sweetness and body, the scallions raw for sharpness.
Egg. One, and it binds the filling so the mummies hold their shape.
Nutmeg. A quarter teaspoon, grated fresh. It is the quiet ingredient in almost every good spinach dish in Europe.
Phyllo. Thawed overnight in the fridge, never on the counter.
The Foolproof Method
- Squeeze the spinach hard. Then harder.
- Soften the onion, cool it, and combine everything.
- Chill the filling 20 minutes.
- Shape 24 logs.
- Wrap at varying angles, gap near one end, ends tucked under.
- Butter everything, bake 22–25 min.
- Black-olive eyes immediately.
Squeeze the Spinach Until You Think You’re Done
This is the whole recipe and it takes ninety seconds.
A pound of thawed frozen spinach can release a substantial bowlful of liquid. Do not chase a fixed cup measure; squeeze until the spinach is dense, compact and no longer leaves a wet mark. Water left inside the filling turns to steam and softens the phyllo from within.
How to do it properly:
Use a tea towel, not your hands. Tip the thawed spinach into the centre of a clean towel, gather the corners, and twist. A towel gives you far more mechanical advantage than squeezing handfuls.
Twist past the point where it stops dripping freely. That point is roughly halfway. Keep twisting until it becomes genuinely difficult and only occasional drops come out.
Squeeze over a bowl rather than the sink, at least the first time you make these. Seeing how much liquid actually comes out is more convincing than any instruction.
The finished spinach should be a dense, dry, almost crumbly ball that holds together when you press it and does not leave a wet mark on the board.
If you are using fresh spinach, wilt it, cool it, and then do exactly the same thing. Fresh and frozen spinach vary; use the finished texture rather than a fixed extracted volume.
The target is dry enough to protect the pastry but not desiccated. If the squeezed spinach seems stringy rather than compact, mix in one tablespoon of olive oil before assembling; use the texture cue rather than force or an exact liquid target.
Working With Phyllo, Briefly
Three lines, because the full treatment is on the baked feta page and there is no point writing it twice.
Thaw overnight in the fridge, never at room temperature. Keep the cut strips under a damp — not wet — tea towel while you work. Tears do not matter at all, because you are layering narrow strips at random angles and nothing shows.
The one thing worth repeating: butter every exposed edge. Dry phyllo edges go from golden to black in under a minute.
Full detail, including what to do when the whole box has dried out, is in the mummy baked feta in phyllo recipe.
Freeze Raw, Bake From Frozen
The reason these exist. The principle applies to everything wrapped in pastry and it is worth understanding rather than just following.
For the crispest result in this recipe, freeze the mummies raw. Baked phyllo can be frozen, but reheated layers may be less crisp.
For this recipe, the raw-freeze route gave the crispest result in testing. Freeze the assembled pieces flat, package once solid and bake from frozen. Baked phyllo can also be frozen safely when handled correctly, but its reheated texture may be softer; that is a quality distinction, not a universal safety rule.
How to do it:
- Assemble completely, including the wrapping and the butter.
- Freeze flat on a parchment-lined tray until solid, about 2 hours. This stops them fusing into a block.
- Transfer to freezer bags, squeeze the air out, and label with the date.
- Bake from frozen at 400°F for 30 to 33 minutes. Do not thaw — thawed raw phyllo goes limp and the filling weeps.
- Black-olive eyes go in after baking, as usual.
Use one month as the quality target. Food held continuously at 0°F (-18°C) remains frozen-safe, but texture and flavor decline; date the bag and discard anything mishandled or thawed too long.
Two practical notes. Freeze on the tray you will eventually bake on if it fits, so you handle them once. And bag them in party-sized portions — twelve to a bag — rather than all twenty-four together, so you are not chipping frozen mummies apart at seven in the evening.
Creative Variations
Feta and ricotta. A third of the feta replaced with ricotta. Milder, creamier, and better for children.
With pine nuts and currants. Two tablespoons of each, toasted. Turkish in spirit and genuinely excellent.
Leek instead of onion. Finer, sweeter, more delicate. A little more work to soften properly.
Swiss chard instead of spinach. More assertive and slightly bitter, and it needs the same aggressive squeezing.
Larger, as a main. Double the log size and bake 30 minutes. Two per person with a salad is dinner.
Storage and Reheating
Serve within an hour of baking. They are best in the first twenty minutes.
Leftovers: 2 days in the fridge, reheated at 350°F for 8 minutes on a rack so the base crisps again. Never a microwave.
Raw frozen: 1 month at good quality.
Baked frozen: possible but not recommended, for the reasons above.
Transporting: they travel in a ventilated tin with parchment between layers; keep total room-temperature time within two hours, or one hour above 90°F, though they lose their crispness within an hour or so. If you are taking them somewhere, take them raw and frozen and bake them on arrival if you can.
Nutritional Benefits
Spinach brings iron, folate, vitamin K and magnesium in genuine quantity, and a pound of it goes into twenty-four pieces. Feta contributes calcium and protein; olive oil brings monounsaturated fat. Phyllo is a very thin pastry and each mummy uses very little of it, which is why these sit at around 95 calories each.
For a hot party appetizer they are unusually reasonable, and the filling is largely vegetable.
Five Rules to Keep Beside the Recipe
Thaw spinach safely in the refrigerator
Squeeze until it leaves no wet mark
Cool the onion before mixing
Butter every exposed phyllo edge
Freeze flat for best texture and bake from frozen
Scaling line: 12 mummies: 225g spinach + 5 phyllo sheets · 24: 450g + 10 sheets · 48: 900g + 20 sheets, split across four trays
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I freeze spanakopita before baking?
Yes, and you should. Assemble completely, freeze flat on a parchment-lined tray until solid, then bag. Bake from frozen at 400°F for 30 to 33 minutes without thawing. They keep a month at good quality. Freezing raw gives the best texture here; baked leftovers can be frozen, but they may reheat less crisp.
Why is my spanakopita soggy?
The spinach was too wet. A pound of thawed frozen spinach holds close to a cup of liquid, and most people stop squeezing at about halfway. Wring it in a tea towel until it becomes genuinely hard to twist and only occasional drops come out.
Can I use fresh spinach instead of frozen?
Yes — about two pounds of fresh replaces one pound of frozen. Wilt it, cool it, and squeeze it exactly as hard. Fresh spinach also needs thorough squeezing; judge it by the dense finished texture rather than by a fixed liquid volume.
How far ahead can I make these?
A month, raw and frozen. Or assemble and refrigerate for up to 24 hours if you would rather not freeze. The filling itself can be made two days ahead and kept in the fridge.
Can I make spanakopita mummies without phyllo?
Spring roll wrappers cut into strips are the closest workable substitute — crisp, thin, no rise, though slightly chewier. Puff pastry does not work for the bandage effect because it rises and unifies into a parcel.
What can I use instead of dill?
Nothing that gives the same result, honestly. Dill is what makes this taste like spanakopita. Fennel fronds are the closest thing if you truly cannot find it. Parsley alone will make a perfectly nice spinach and feta pastry that is not spanakopita.
Pairing and Serving Ideas
On a mummy-themed table, alongside the baked feta and the wrapped dates. Three scales of the same idea, and the repetition reads as a theme rather than as a lack of ideas.
As the hot element on a grazing board, staggered out of the oven so a fresh batch arrives every hour.
With a dip: tzatziki is traditional, but on a Halloween table the black tahini hummus beside them gives you gold on black, which is better.
For a kids’ table, made slightly smaller and served warm rather than hot. They are one of very few genuinely vegetable-forward things children eat without discussion. [LIVE — /kid-friendly-halloween-recipes-mediterranean/]
Wrapped and Frozen
[VIDEO EMBED — 20 seconds, vertical 9:16]
Spinach wrung hard in a tea towel with a startling amount of green liquid running into a bowl, the filling mixed and shaped into logs, phyllo strips wrapped at angles with a gap left at one end, the tray going into the freezer, then a hard cut to golden baked mummies with black-olive eyes pressed in.
Ready to Fill Your Freezer?
Squeeze harder than you think. Chill the filling. Wrap badly. Butter everything.
Then freeze them flat, bag them in twelves, and go into October with twenty-four hot appetizers already handled.
