Braised collard greens
A while ago we planted collard greens without really knowing what we would do with them if they grew. And grow they did. Soon we had exuberant, huge green leaves in the garden.
A quick search on the New York Times Cooking site took me to Martha Rose Schulman’s recipe for this veggie. She has hundreds of mostly plant-based recipes on this site — any of the recipes I have tried are really good. This recipe takes about an hour but there is a lot of downtime.
Servings: 4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Ingredients
- Huge bunch collard greens — about the size of a volleyball (about 2 lbs)
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, sliced
- 4 large garlic cloves, chopped
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red chili flakes
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add some salt.
- Wash the collard leaves and cut off the biggest stems.
- Prepare a big bowl of ice water. Boil the greens for about 4 minutes. Remove the greens with a strainer reserving the cooking water and immerse in the ice water.
- Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large pot.
- Cook the onions until softened then add the garlic and chilies for another couple of minutes.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Squeeze the water out of the collards. You will end up with a double handful about the size of a softball. Thinly slice this mass of collards then add to the onion mixture along with 1 cup of the cooking water.
- Simmer partially covered for 40 minutes or until the greens are tender.
- Adjust seasoning and maybe add a little hot sauce.
These were great as a side dish the first night and the base for a robust vegetable soup the next night. Try collards. Easy to grow and easy to cook.
Nutrition information (per serving)
- Calories: 150
- Total fat: 11 g
- Saturated fat: 1.5 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
- Sodium: 170 mg
- Total carbohydrate: 12 g
- Dietary fiber: 7 g
- Total sugars: 3 g
- Protein: 4 g
Note: Calculated using 1/4 teaspoon salt.