Our recipe for a spinach feta pie with ground sockeye salmon is a wild riff on spanakopita, a classic Greek pie that is often made with crispy phyllo dough, feta, and spinach. In Greek cuisine, these ingredients are interchangeable, reflecting the local bounty — but always producing a crispy, savory pie, the epitome of comfort food. We couldn’t help adding wild-caught ground sockeye to the filling to give this pie an Alaskan twist.
Melted butter transforms delicate phyllo dough into the ridiculously flaky crust that we love about spanakopita, while olive oil and aromatics like onion and garlic enhance the earthy flavor of spinach that is the flavor foundation of this pie; these ingredients also happen to work really nicely with the meaty taste of ground sockeye salmon. You may use fresh, cooked spinach (or any other cooked, tender green!) if you prefer, but using a couple bags of frozen spinach keeps this recipe streamlined while still producing a delicious filling.
By the way, if you’ve never worked with phyllo dough before, don’t be intimidated! Just thaw it out according to the directions on the package and don’t fret about perfection when you’re building your pie.
Herbs in the pie are also a must; we used oregano and dill to add nuance to the pie filling, but feel free to use any fresh green herbs you have on hand to complement the flavors of spinach, briny feta cheese, and gamey ground sockeye salmon. A note on the feta: Get the best quality feta you can find, as higher-quality fetas will add salt as well as a fuller flavor to the mix.
The bright pop of scallions, lemon juice, and lemon zest round out the flavor profile of the filling. And finally, mixing a few eggs into the filling isn’t entirely necessary, but they do help to bind everything together as they bake and will create a lightness of texture within the pie.
