This is my go-to collards recipe. These easy collard greens have a richness about them and a melt-in-your-mouth quality.
Vegan & gluten-free side dish.
Garlicky greens are one of my all-time favorite foods.
While they weren't something that I grew up eating, I have more than made up for lost time since then.
Slow-cooked collards are tender and melt in your mouth.
And they make a great side dish along with vegan mac and cheese.
If I make that for dinner, I can rest assured I will be very popular in my house that night.
In this post:
Ingredients
Here are the ingredients you will need to make this recipe.
Oil: Any neutral-flavored oil will work here. I use avocado oil.
Fresh garlic: Cloves vary in size. So choose the amount by your own affinity for garlic, and the size of the specific cloves.
Collard greens: Look for large leaves that are bright green & not wilting or shriveled.
Water: I like to use water & bouillon for their pantry-friendly ease. But if you’d rather, you can use vegetable broth instead.
Bouillon: Better Than Bouillon no chicken base works well here. Or you could use ¼ of a vegetable bouillon cube.
Salt: A pinch of salt amplifies the flavors. If your bouillon is super salty, you can use less or omit it altogether.
Step by step instructions
This section shows how to make this recipe at a glance with process photos of the steps. For complete ingredient amounts & instructions, keep scrolling to the recipe card below.
In a large soup pot, sauté minced garlic in oil until softened and fragrant.
Then add the following:
- Chopped collard greens
- Water
- Bouillon
- Pinch of salt
Once the liquid is at a simmer, turn the heat to low and cover with a lid.
Allow the greens to cook for 25 minutes or more. You want them to be almost falling apart soft.
Are collard greens bitter?
One question I'm often asked about collards is if they are bitter.
If you're used to milder greens like romaine or spinach, collards may seem bitter at first.
They have a much stronger, grassier flavor.
That's one benefit of cooking the collard greens low and slow.
They lose a lot of their bitterness. And the flavor becomes richer with an almost tinny quality.
I cook my collards for about a half an hour with lots of sautéed garlic. But some people cook theirs for hours!
You can also add something sweet like dried cranberries to balance some of that bitterness, as I do in my recipe for smoky sweet vegan collard greens.
After a while, you will become accustomed to the strong flavors of dark, leafy greens. You may notice that your palate changes.
Tips for success
Here are a couple of tips to make your greens the best they can be.
Use enough liquid but not too much
The size of a bunch of greens varies. You don't want the collards to be boiling in the broth or water.
So add as much as seems appropriate to keep the greens from burning. Then add more if the liquid is cooking off too quickly.
Cook low and slow
Collard greens are one of those rare foods that is actually better when it's overcooked.
Start the collards first before getting the rest of dinner going. It will only be improved by it.
Make it your own
Make this dish your own by varying the ingredients & seasonings.
Add curly kale to the mix
For a milder flavor, add an equal amount of kale to your collards. Then double the water, bouillon, and salt.
Both greens cook down a lot. So you're more likely to get some leftovers out of it if you double up!
Add a splash of liquid smoke
Often, people will add smoked pig parts to greens. But why not leave the pigs out of it?
The only reason that product tastes smoky is because it has been cooked in a smoker. You can just as easily use liquid smoke instead.
As the name suggests, liquid smoke is simply smoke that has been condensed into a liquid.
Liquid smoke is very strong in flavor. Start with ¼ teaspoon of liquid smoke and work up from there.
Use smoked salt
Instead of table salt, add a pinch of smoked salt for smoky flavor.
Add a dash of hot sauce
If you like a little kick of heat, add a few dashes of hot sauce.
A vinegar-based hot sauce is especially nice here.
Add a squeeze of lemon juice
For a bit of tang, add a squeeze of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
Serving ideas
Collard greens are an excellent side dish for almost any main course.
They go well with any of these main dishes:
- Vegan pulled pork
- Buffalo Soy Curls sandwich
- Vegan BBQ sandwich
- BBQ jackfruit
- Vegan fried chicken
- Hot open faced sandwich
Collards pair well with any of these sides:
Storage & reheating
Store leftover garlicky collard greens in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
They will keep for about 4 days.
Reheat in a pot on the stove or in the microwave until warm.
If you try this recipe and love it, let me know! Leave a comment and ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the comment section below. It truly makes my day and is such a help!
📖 Recipe
Easy collard greens (Vegan)
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon avocado oil or other neutral flavored oil
- 4 to 5 cloves garlic minced
- 1 bunch collard greens leaves removed from tough center rib and roughly chopped in medium-sized pieces
- ½ cup water
- ¼ teaspoon Better Than Bouillon, no chicken base
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- In a medium-sized pot or skillet with lid, bring oil to a medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant, about five minutes.
- Add the chopped collard greens, water, and bouillon. Add a pinch of salt, keeping in mind that your broth or bouillon may already have salt in it. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
- Once it is simmering, turn the heat to medium low and cover. Remove lid to stir and check occasionally, making sure there is still enough liquid on the bottom and that the collards aren't sticking. If they start to stick, lower the heat and add a tablespoon or two of water, as necessary.
- Cover and continue cooking for 25 minutes, until the collard greens have become soft to the bite.
Notes
Nutrition
Content updated November 4, 2022. Originally posted July 15, 2013.
Shell
Such an easy and delish side dish!
Cadry Nelson
So glad you enjoyed it! It’s one of my favorites too. Just had it for lunch today!
David
I love collard greens, and this recipe is my favorite way of preparing them!
Cadry
Yes! Collards are the best.
Tomas
Googling around for new recipies im new going vegan and always seem to go hungry all the time.. 🙁
I used to be a very big meat eater so its so hard to chug in like 2 entire plates of food just to not go hungry. I grow tired of eating when theres so much chewing involved.
Now im on my 4th 100% vegan week.
Relapsed into going back to meat multiple times when im just TOO hungry because im running out of ideas on what to eat.
And i dont have many “staple foods”
which i can make over and over and know how to vary them without growing tired of them.
I always like kale and cooking kale with a lid on + water on a frying pan but sometimes i just keep failing and fry them and dry them out instead.
I hope this recipe (low heat and with oil and increasing the cooking time to 25 minutes where as i usually did it in 10-15mins on high heat with water)
please share any more recipies which for you are “staple”
and has many variations, thank you very much 🙂
/ Struggling swedish vegan
Cadry
Hi, Tomas!
I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling with going vegan. It can be an adjustment at first to get used to cooking new things, especially after building up a lifetime of habits. I totally hear you on getting tired of chewing. I remember feeling that way too when I went vegetarian. It was a lot more produce than I was used to eating!
The first thing I always recommend to people who are just going vegan is to look at the foods you used to make & love before you went vegan. Is there a way to veganize those things, so that you’re not making a new recipe every time? For me, it was easy to swap out beef for beans in tacos, lentils for meat in spaghetti, and tofu for meat in a stir-fry.
Good luck to you, and please keep in touch!
Tracey
How do you make your plantains??
Cadry
I just so happen to have a post about that! 🙂 How to make plantains: https://cadryskitchen.com/make-sweet-fried-plantains/
Tracey
You are amazing!!!
Cadry
Ha! Aren’t you sweet? 😀
Tracey
🙂
Mae
Hi Cadry! I bought a bunch of collard greens for the first time yesterday to use in pesto, and I have a whole lot of it left, so I was trying to think of what to do with it, when I randomly stumbled on this post! My silly question for you is how big is a “bunch” to you? I couldn’t believe how huge the leaves are, and I have quite a bit of it left. It seems like the amount that is pictured in the pot that you have in this post is not as much as I have left. Do you have any sort of estimated guess on how many really big leaves you’d call a bunch? Thanks!
Cadry
Hi, Mae! When I say “a bunch,” I’m referring to the way that the collards are bundled together at the grocery store. One bundle is one bunch. The amount of actual greens that you get from a bunch, though, can vary it seems, depending on how big of leaves you have. I just counted the amount of leaves in the bunch currently in my refrigerator, and there are eight very large leaves.
This recipe is really forgiving. Just get rid of the center rib of the collards, chop the leaves, and sauté whatever amount of garlic you’d like in oil in a pot. Then add the leaves and enough broth (or water & bouillon cube) to cover the bottom of the pot, but not so much that it completely covers the greens themselves. (You want to kind of steam the greens, not boil them.) Follow the directions as directed above, and if the greens start to stick, add more water.
Good luck! 🙂