Southern Collard Greens

Easy and nutritious southern collard greens with bacon and bone broth slow cooked in the oven or on the stove. 

There are many ways to cook collard greens with or without meat. The southern-style collard greens, however, are usually cooked with ham hock or bacon. Other common ingredients used in a great recipe of southern greens are sweet onions, garlic, chicken broth, and apple cider vinegar. Sometimes a little bit of brown sugar is added to help balance the bitterness of the greens.

I learned some southern cooking when I lived in Jacksonville, FL. Collard greens and cornbread are two main recipes that I picked up there. In this post, I want to share my best collard greens recipe with only seven ingredients. This recipe uses bacon instead of ham to cut down the cooking time significantly.

Some people make collard greens on the stovetop using a large pot. And others slow cook the greens in the oven. Either way, it starts with cooking bacon on the stovetop and let the fat render. Then sauté sweet onions in the bacon fat until softened, followed by some garlic. From this point, add broth and bring to a simmer. Once the greens are added to the cooking liquid. You can choose to continue cooking it on the stove or transfer to the oven to braise. It depends on what cookware is available in your kitchen.

Cookware for Cooking Southern Collard Greens

If you have a dutch oven, then feel free to be flexible and do what you feel like when cooking collard greens. Either continue cooking the greens on the stove after they are added to the dutch oven with the prepared cooking liquid, or transfer it to the oven and bake for 45 minutes at 350°F.

If you don’t have a dutch oven, there are a couple methods you can choose from.

• Use a heavy-duty roasting pan for both stovetop and oven cooking like what I did.
• Use a large stockpot and cook the collard greens over medium heat until the greens reach your desired tenderness.

A Good Broth Goes A Long Way

As mentioned, chicken stock is a choice of many home cooks when it comes to cooking southern-style greens. My choice is Kettle and Fire Chicken Bone Broth which is simmered in filtered water with apple cider vinegar for 12 hours. The chicken bone broth has 10 grams of protein per serving. It makes the cooking liquid from the greens amazingly tasty. After cooking, you can use the cooking liquid for another batch of collard greens or use it as a soup base.

On a side note, the look of southern greens is always brownish and I’d be honest with you, I had a hard time to style this dish. However, I promise that it tastes fabulous. I hope you enjoy it!

And as always, once you get a chance to make this recipe, leave a comment and let me know how you like it and what creative ways you come up with to enjoy the cooking liquid, which is my favorite part of the recipe. Happy cooking!

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