Greens are a household favorite in my family for any occasion! It’s a southern staple, true and near to my heart. I have so many wonderful memories of learning how to prepare, season and cook them to perfection. Now I get to share some of these tips with you.
Why use an Instant Pot to make collard greens? When you’re cooking different dishes for the holidays or a big meal, the Instant Pot frees up your stovel.
It’s also super easy and quicker than the traditional method, cutting your cooking time by half. Plus, you don’t have to worry about making the traditional boiled broth prior to adding the vegetables.It usually takes about extra minutes to make this broth the traditional way, requiring you to boil stock with spices and the smoked meat to infuse the broth with flavor. Pressure cookers permeate flavor into the meats and veggies without the hassle!
Délice Maison / Sharee Hill
Key Ingredients in Southern-Style Collard Greens
Typically, Southern cooks add smoked meat, onions, and a splash of vinegar to their collard greens, Other popular staples include fresh garlic, garlic powder, onion powder, and crushed red pepper.
Using all of these elements gives the cooking liquid a smoky, garlicky onion flavor. The vinegar cuts the bitterness and the red pepper adds a nice spicy taste.
How to Choose Greens
Always look for leaves that are bright green, have no bruising, and don’t look wilted. You want the freshest produce for better results.
Depending on how much you need to cook, cleaning and prepping the leaves can be time consuming. There are convenient options now to skip a few prep steps! Look for precut and precleaned collard greens, usually found in the produce aisle in large sealed bags.
Prepping and Cleaning Collard Greens
If you decide to cut and clean your own greens, first cut the leaves from the stems. After doing this, roll the leaves up and slice them into four to five equal parts.
Délice Maison / Sharee Hill
Tip
Instead of using a knife to stem the greens, you can “zip” the stems from the leaves with your hands. Gip the base of the stem in one hand and pull the leaf through your first and middle fingers of your other hand. This works best with fresh greens, not limp ones.
It’s easier to clean the collards after stemming and cutting them. Proper cleaning is a must to make sure all the dirt and debris is gone prior to cooking. Place the chopped leaves in a large bowl or pot and fill with water to cover. Add about 1/2 cup of white vinegar and let them sit for 5 minutes. Then, rinse and drain the greens. They are ready to cook now!
Other Greens to Use
With this style of cooking greens, collards may be the most popular (and my own favorite), but there are actually a few different greens you can use in this recipe, including kale, mustard, and turnip greens. Collards are a little bitter, while the turnip and mustard variety are more peppery. Depending on the variety, kale can have a mild flavor.
Tip
Turnip and mustard greens are not as sturdy as collard greens, so if you use them, you may want to reduce the cooking time.
Délice Maison / Sharee Hill
A Little Smoked Meat for Big Flavor
When making any long-simmered beans or greens in the Southern style, I always add smoked meatI use smoked turkey wings because they tend to be less fatty. Smoked turkey necks, ham hocks, bacon, and even ham are great substitutes to use if you don’t have turkey wings available.
Tips, Tricks, and Swaps
If there is not enough room in your Instant Pot for all of the greens, let them cook for about 5 minutes using the saute function to help them to wilt down and make room for the remaining ingredients.
Use water if you don’t have any stock on hand. You might have to add extra salt if you use water.
Crushed red pepper is a popular substitute for the cayenne pepper. I would use about 1/2 teaspoon if I used this instead.
For a spicy flavor, double the cayenne pepper or crushed pepper.
Transporting and Reheating
The easiest way to transport this dish to another location is to let the collards cool, lock the lid on the Instant Pot, and just bring the entire Instant Pot along with you, plugging it in when you arrive so you can use the saute setting to reheat the greens. Then switch to the keep warm setting. The greens can stay on the keep warm setting for up to 2 hours
Délice Maison / Sharee Hill
Grazing on Greens
