Saag bhaji is a spinach dish widely eaten all over Bangladesh. This is probably the easiest Bengali dish you’ll ever make. If you don’t have any spinach, you can substitute in other greens like mustard, swiss chard, beet greens. The taste may differ from regular spinach, as spinach has a very mild flavor. I like to use radish greens because they give the dish a spicy kick.

For the mixed greens, I used one pound of spinach and two bunches of radish leaves. When I buy radishes from the store, I make sure to get ones with the leaves attached. You can pair the leaves with spinach which works well in my opinion.

Ingredients

• 8 cup mixed green, spinach and radish (1 bunch spinach and 2 bunches or radish greens)
• 3 tbsp. canola oil
• 6 dried hot red chili
• 7 cloves or 2 1/2 tbsp. garlic, thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Instructions

Wash greens and drain well. Finely shred the greens and thinly slice the garlic cloves.

Heat oil in a medium sized deep frying pan. When oil is hot, add dried chili peppers. Take chili peppers out when they change the color and smoke a bit. It should turn dark brown. Set aside.

Add the garlic slices. Once garlic slices turns light brown, which could happen pretty fast, add the mixed green and salt. Cook the spinach till all the water evaporates and spinach are wilted and cooked. Transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with dried chili.

Dried chili adds a distinct flavor to the spinach dish. Usually people break up the dried chili with our hand and eat it along rice and others dishes are being served.

Serves 4

Did you make this dish? I’d love to know how it turns out! Feel free to like this post and comment or use the hashtag #globaldinein on Instagram. If you would to be notified of upcoming posts, please consider subscribing to my blog!