diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 91b8855..f5c57f1 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -162,6 +162,20 @@ Alternatively, you can use regular scrapy.Request and
         }
     })
 
+It is also possible to configure Splash for all requests in a Spider by default
+using a ``splash`` spider attribute::
+
+    class MySpider(Spider):
+        name = 'myspider'
+        splash = {
+            # …
+        }
+
+If you use a ``splash`` spider attribute, you can still override those Splash
+settings for specific requests using the ``splash`` request meta key, or
+disable Splash completely setting the ``dont_splash`` request meta key to
+``True``.
+
 Use ``request.meta['splash']`` API in middlewares or when scrapy.Request
 subclasses are used (there is also ``SplashFormRequest`` described below).
 For example, ``meta['splash']`` allows to create a middleware which enables
diff --git a/scrapy_splash/middleware.py b/scrapy_splash/middleware.py
index 24ab23a..70a03b2 100644
--- a/scrapy_splash/middleware.py
+++ b/scrapy_splash/middleware.py
@@ -257,8 +257,16 @@ def _argument_values(self):
     def _remote_keys(self):
         return self.crawler.spider.state[self.remote_keys_key]
 
+    def _get_splash_options(self, request, spider):
+        if request.meta.get("dont_splash") is True:
+            return
+        spider_options = getattr(spider, "splash", {})
+        request_options = request.meta.get("splash")
+        return request_options or spider_options
+
     def process_request(self, request, spider):
-        if 'splash' not in request.meta:
+        splash_options = self._get_splash_options(request, spider)
+        if not splash_options:
             return
 
         if request.method not in {'GET', 'POST'}:
@@ -274,7 +282,6 @@ def process_request(self, request, spider):
             # don't process the same request more than once
             return
 
-        splash_options = request.meta['splash']
         request.meta['_splash_processed'] = True
 
         slot_policy = splash_options.get('slot_policy', self.slot_policy)
@@ -368,7 +375,7 @@ def process_response(self, request, response, spider):
         if not request.meta.get("_splash_processed"):
             return response
 
-        splash_options = request.meta['splash']
+        splash_options = self._get_splash_options(request, spider)
         if not splash_options:
             return response
 
diff --git a/tests/test_middleware.py b/tests/test_middleware.py
index 66b79ce..12e53e8 100644
--- a/tests/test_middleware.py
+++ b/tests/test_middleware.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+
 from __future__ import absolute_import
 import copy
 import json
@@ -765,3 +766,58 @@ def test_adjust_timeout():
     })
     req2 = mw.process_request(req2, None)
     assert req2.meta['download_timeout'] == 30
+
+
+def test_spider_attribute():
+    req_url = "http://scrapy.org"
+    spider = scrapy.Spider("example")
+    mw = _get_mw()
+
+    req1 = scrapy.Request(req_url)
+    spider.splash = {"args": {"images": 0}}
+
+    mw = _get_mw()
+    req2 = mw.process_request(req1, spider)
+    assert "_splash_processed" in req2.meta
+    assert "render.json" in req2.url
+    request_data = json.loads(req2.body.decode('utf8'))
+    assert "url" in request_data
+    assert request_data.get("url") == req_url
+    assert "images" in request_data
+    assert req2.method == 'POST'
+
+    response = Response(req_url, request=req2)
+    response2 = mw.process_response(req2, response, spider)
+    assert response2 is not response
+
+
+def test_spider_attribute_dont_splash():
+    req_url = "http://scrapy.org"
+    spider = scrapy.Spider("example")
+    mw = _get_mw()
+
+    req1 = scrapy.Request(req_url, meta={'dont_splash': True})
+    spider.splash = {"args": {"images": 0}}
+
+    req2 = mw.process_request(req1, spider)
+    assert req2 is None
+
+    response = Response(req_url, request=req1)
+    response2 = mw.process_response(req1, response, spider)
+    assert response2 is response
+
+
+def test_spider_attribute_blank():
+    req_url = "http://scrapy.org"
+    spider = scrapy.Spider("example")
+    mw = _get_mw()
+
+    req1 = scrapy.Request(req_url)
+    spider.splash = {}
+
+    req2 = mw.process_request(req1, spider)
+    assert req2 is None
+
+    response = Response(req_url, request=req1)
+    response2 = mw.process_response(req1, response, spider)
+    assert response2 is response