How to Cook Collard Greens—That People Will Actually Eat

I thought about getting reflective and deep on this New Year’s Day, but honestly….I’m not in the mood. I’ll get around to that later when I have time.

What I am doing today is cooking our New Year’s meal, complete with collard greens. As I was cooking, I remembered not too long ago when I received one of the greatest compliments on my greens that I’ve ever gotten. It was from an older gentleman at our church who compared mine with his grandmother’s. He also made the comment that there are few people who can cook collard greens like that. Wow!

Now I know that collard greens aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I personally love them. I could eat them morning, noon, and night and be happy as a lark. They have to be done right, though. And evidently, doing them right isn't quite as straightforward as I would have imagined.

This is NOT a Recipe

I do not have a recipe for my collards, and I don’t really intend to make one. The amount of greens you’re working with might change from one bunch to the next, and I’m certainly not going to throw some out because I have too many for the recipe or spend forever doing multipliers for my ingredients so I do use all the greens. Wow, that was a long sentence!

The point is, I think a recipe would cause more confusion than help as far as I’m concerned, which means I would confuse you if I tried to use one. I just eyeball the situation. I’ve cooked some extremely good batches of greens and some that weren’t phenomenal but still perfectly edible. You just kind of do it till you get it how you like it….which will take more than one attempt more than likely.

How I Do It

I actually cheated today because I simply did not have time to fool with fresh greens. I bought a couple of bags of frozen chopped collards. I know….shame on me. Most of the time, though, I do use fresh greens and I assure you they are worth the headache  hassle time to prepare. But just so you know, you can use frozen greens in a pinch.

So, you’re going to start with two large bunches of collard greens. We have a local farm I’ve recently discovered that grows greens year round, so that’s where I get mine now. They wait till you come out and cut them off while you wait, so you really can’t get them much fresher than that. If you don’t have a local farm, greens from the store do work.

You’re going to take these greens home and put them in a large tub of cool water. Now, here’s my secret: vinegar. Put a splash or two of vinegar in your soak water to help clean them. Let them soak for a couple of hours, and agitate them every so often. Pour off the soak water and rinse well to make sure all dirt and whatnot is removed. Nobody likes gritty greens.

Here’s the headache hassle pain in the rear time-consuming part. You gotta chop these things up. Fresh collard greens are tough. You’ll need a good, sharp knife that you can manipulate easily. I have very small hands, so I find a paring knife is right for me. Someone with larger hands may do better with a chef’s knife. Whatever’s comfortable for you.

Take a section of your bunch and cut away the bottom stalky part. Now, some people may like to pull or cut the leaves off the stems. I do this sometimes if the stems are super thick, but most of the time it all goes in except the big part at the bottom. Then you’re ready to chop ‘em up.

A trick I’ve found that makes it a little easier is to take a couple of the largest leaves and wrap them around the others kind of like a bundle. This helps to keep everything contained. I slice them across in strips, then go back and chop length-wise, kind of like you’re dicing. You’ll have to do this in sections till all the mini-bunches are chopped. When you’ve got the size pieces you want, you’re ready to cook.

Cooking the Collards

I usually need two large pots to cook my collards because I do them in big batches. Put your greens in an empty pot, and don’t be afraid to pack ‘em down tight. These suckers will reduce to about half of what you started with once they get to cooking good. But here’s what will make or break your greens:

• ·        Pour some sugar over the greens. Yes, sugar. I can’t tell you how much because I don’t know what size pot you’re working with. For my 32-quart stockpot, however, I usually use somewhere around half a cup to ¾ of a cup of sugar.
• ·         Follow that up with some salt. Use about as much salt as you do sugar….maybe a little less if you’re watching your sodium.
• ·         Pour some vinegar over that. Again, eyeball it to taste. I like mine a little tart so I use more vinegar than someone else might use. Generally speaking, though, if you keep your ratios of sugar, salt, and vinegar the same, you’ll have a pretty good batch of greens.
• ·         Add a ham bone or some ham fat. I try to keep some put up in the freezer for this purpose. Never, never throw away your ham bones or fat! If you don’t have any, you can use fatback or bacon. I don’t like using bacon because it tends to make the greens greasy, but to each their own.
• ·         Cover it all with water. A word to the wise: collards float. There’s no point in even trying to literally cover them. Just fill the pot to within a couple of inches of the top with water and you’ll be fine.

Stir it all together and put a lid on it. Turn your burner on high and leave it be for a while. Keep an eye on it, though, because the greens are going to rise to the top of the pot as it gets hotter. After about 15 minutes or so, they should be ready to stir a bit, and stirring will help them sink back down till they reduce. At this point you can turn the heat down to medium-low and pretty much let it cook. Just be sure to put the lid back on and give it a stir every 30 minutes or so.

Good collards take time. A lot of time. I have simmered mine on low overnight before. The longer they cook, the more tender they will be and the more flavor they’ll have. Just don’t let them cook out of water or you’ll have a mess. If you don’t want to cook them overnight, that’s fine. They do need to simmer for at least three hours, though, and four is better.

So there you go: a very long, drawn out explanation of how to cook awesome collard greens. But then, cooking awesome collard greens is quite a long and drawn out process, so ya know. I don’t know if this will help anyone master greens or not, but I do wish you the best of luck if you want to try. Happy New Year!!!