How Long Collard Greens Cook

I always turned my nose up to collard greens, and then I made this recipe - outstanding! I received the greens from my farm share and was going to give them away but DH asked me to find a recipe; so glad I turned to Southern Living! I had one bunch of greens which translated more or less to 1/3 of the recipe. I chopped up the greens and made as specified, except for vegetable stock instead of chicken and smoked ham (cuz I forgot to buy), and cooked on low heat for 3 hours. The greens were smoky from the bacon, super tender, and got punch from the vinegar. Our family of two ate every bite. A new fan has been born!!!

Donna Sharp

I don't use ham or sugar in greens. I use smoked ham hocks and vegetable broth rather than chicken. The taste of the greens are more pronounced with veggie broth. Chicken stock/broth masks the flavor. I live in Ohio and we don't do sweet greens here. We save the sugar for sweet potato casserole. I also add some freshly grated nutmeg to my greens.

gina sorella

i never have ham in the house, (except for christmas) so i use smoked ham hocks

The base has all the necessary ingredients. Fat, salt, smoke, and aromatics. I cannot eat pork, so I changed up the protein.
I'm smoking a brisket, so I butchered the excess fat and used some of the trimmings to make a beef based version.
For the fat, I rendered the trimmings, then sautéed the onions and garlic. Then, added beef stock and water, and added some of the fat free brisket to braise. The fatty pieces, I threw on the smoker until further rendered (about 90 minutes) and tossed them into the braising liquid.
After a low and slow braise, I strained all ingredients and poured the stock back into the pot, pulled the brisket, added some lemon and reduced the broth for an hour to concentrate the flavors.
The collards were cut in three, with the stalks going in first, leaves second, and kept the temp low to continue braising.
I adjusted the seasoning by adding some more sugar and some pepper flakes, while removing the lemon.
This is not a quick method, as it took about 5 hours, but the flavors and tenderness was great. The smoked fats added what the bacon would have.
Food allergies suck, but there are always substitutes available, as long as you think outside the box.
Thank you Southern Living for the base recipe. I couldn't have adapted it without a solid starting point.

Very good Recipe, if you really want to kick up the flavor profile use Harringtons Bacon and throw in some Ham hocks from Harringtons as well. It really kicks up the flavor

This is the perfect collard recipe, IMO. Everyone LOVES these when I make them.

I served it to at least 10 people and all thought excellent. Even the ones who had never had collards.

This was Amazing not a drop left in the pot I did add the pepper flakes for heat This is sure to be a crowd pleaser. I would chop the greens up first though