Bread bake with egg, spinach and feta Recipe
This bread bake combines French pain perdu with Greek vibes of spinach and feta, but made with ordinary Polish bread. Bread cubes soak up an egg‑and‑milk mixture, creating a soft, almost pudding‑like centre with a distinctly salty, herby accent from the spinach. It’s a clever way to make an elegant brunch from stale bread without buying special loaves.
This is a bake that turns ordinary Polish bread into something reminiscent of French bread pudding, but with a bold Mediterranean accent of spinach and feta. It fits perfectly into the growing brunch culture without requiring special bakery products.
This bake delivers a restaurant‑style brunch effect without fancy ingredients. It uses stale bread as a base reminiscent of French bread pudding, but with a bold Mediterranean touch from spinach and feta. It tastes like a special‑occasion dish yet is made from what you usually already have in the kitchen.
Why this version works
- Dried or stale bread soaks up the egg mixture evenly and doesn’t turn into mush.
- The spinach is pre‑reduced and seasoned, so it doesn’t water down the centre and has a deeper flavour.
- A short resting time before baking allows the eggs to penetrate the bread and prevents dry spots.
Chef's tips
The most common mistake is a centre that’s too wet because of fresh bread and poorly squeezed spinach – both ingredients should feel rather dry to the touch. Before taking it out of the oven, gently shake the dish: the centre may wobble slightly like cheesecake but shouldn’t slosh like liquid. If you want a more deeply browned top, finish under the grill for the last 3–4 minutes, checking the colour every minute.
How to serve
Serve it for breakfast or supper with a salad of tomato, cucumber and red onion or with mixed leaves and a sharp vinaigrette to cut through the creamy centre. It pairs beautifully with filter coffee, tea with lemon or a light white wine. Reheat leftovers the next day as a quick savoury brunch.
Watch out for
- Don’t use very moist, still‑warm bread – the centre will stay watery despite longer baking.
- Don’t oversalt the egg mixture, as the feta becomes even saltier during baking and strongly seasons the whole dish.
- If after 30 minutes the centre looks like runny scrambled eggs, bake for another 5–10 minutes covered with foil.
- When using the grill function, watch the top every minute – feta quickly goes from golden to bitterly burnt.
Substitutions
- You can replace part of the milk with 30% cream if you want a more dessert‑like, creamy centre.
- Feta can be swapped for Balkan‑style cheese or any salty salad cheese for a similar effect.
- Fresh spinach can be replaced with frozen leaf spinach, provided it is very thoroughly squeezed dry.
Ingredients
- wheat or mixed bread can be stale - 8 slices
- spinach fresh or frozen, leaves - 250 g
- feta cheese - 150 g
- egg - 4 pieces
- milk - 200 ml
- garlic - 2 cloves
- rapeseed oil - 1 tablespoon
- butter for greasing the dish - 10 g
- nutmeg optional, ground - 0.25 teaspoons
- salt to taste (careful, feta is salty)
- black pepper to taste
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 190°C, top and bottom heat. Thoroughly grease a baking dish with butter, including the sides – after baking the edges should be golden and nothing should stick.
- Cut the bread into 2–3 cm cubes. If it’s fresh, spread it on a tray and dry in the oven for 5–7 minutes until dry to the touch on the outside but still soft inside and almost without colour.
- Transfer the bread cubes to the dish in a fairly tight but not compressed layer. There should be small gaps between the pieces so the egg mixture can flow through freely.
- Finely chop the garlic. Rinse fresh spinach and dry it very thoroughly (e.g. in a salad spinner); if using frozen, thaw completely and squeeze very firmly until it feels almost dry in your hands.
- Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and fry for about 30 seconds until very fragrant but not browned. Add the spinach and fry for 3–5 minutes until wilted or until any liquid has fully evaporated.
- Season the spinach with salt, pepper and nutmeg. The finished filling should be flavourful and almost dry – there should be no wet puddles on the bottom of the pan, only slightly moist leaves.
- Spread the spinach evenly over the bread. Crumble the feta with your fingers into irregular pieces and sprinkle over everything, letting some pieces fall between the bread cubes so there is cheese both on top and inside.
- In a bowl, whisk the eggs with the milk until the mixture is uniformly yellow with no streaks of egg white. Season with pepper and a little salt, remembering that the feta will intensify the saltiness in the oven.
- Slowly pour the egg mixture into the dish, drizzling it over different spots. Gently press down the top with a spoon – the liquid should come almost to the top of the cubes but not completely cover them.
- Let the bake stand for 5–10 minutes so the bread absorbs some of the liquid. Bake for 25–30 minutes until the centre is set and the top is golden and slightly crisp; when you jiggle the dish, the mixture may only tremble slightly.
- After baking, let the bake rest for 5–10 minutes. During this time the centre will firm up a little – after this rest you can cut it into cubes or squares without egg mixture running out.
Storage
Once cooled, store in the fridge for up to 2 days, tightly covered. After reheating in the oven the centre will become firmer and the top less crisp, but the flavour of spinach and feta will remain intense.
It works best for me with a mix of slices from different loaves – wholemeal ends add character, while white bread makes the centre fluffy. I sometimes throw in a few olives or sun‑dried tomatoes when I have an open jar lingering in the fridge.
