14 Ways To Take Canned Collard Greens To The Next Level

Canned collard greens are a convenient way to enjoy an iconic American food. They're almost synonymous with Southern food culture, with the bitter greens, closely related to kale, serving as the backbone for countless Southern classics. This vegetable is particularly important in African American food culture, with the greens traveling to the United States from Africa, and many dishes incorporating collard greens have become standby staples over hundreds of years.

Canned collard greens take a lot of the hassle out of preparing these tough, fibrous greens. If prepared poorly or not cooked for long enough, collard greens can be near-inedible, and with the canned version, there's no risk of this: All you have to do is open it up, heat your veggies, and you're good to go. The unfortunate truth, however, is that canned collard greens can be pretty boring without a little care. Although many brands pre-season their greens, they can still lack flavor and any textural variation, and can often have an insistent saltiness that comes at the expense of any layers of taste. However, whether your canned collard greens are preseasoned or not, there are tons of ways to jazz them up.

Canned collard greens, with their earthy, vegetal taste, go particularly well with smoked meats. These meats add a serious complexity to collard greens, playing into their grassy flavor notes and taking them from a simple leaf to a foodstuff that feels elevated and classy. While you can use pretty much any smoked meat you like with canned collard greens, we prefer smoked turkey. This protein has a balance of subtle poultry flavors and deep smokiness which imbues the collard greens with plenty of extra flavor without distracting from their distinctive taste. Plus, smoked turkey is an excellent choice for folks who don't eat pork, and stands as the perfect substitute for collard green recipes that use bacon or ham hock.

Bear in mind, though, that the taste of smoked turkey can overpower your collard greens if not balanced with other flavors. Using chicken broth with the turkey can help its taste spread through the collard greens easily, and give a base note of savoriness that stops the smokiness from being too much. Tying everything together with a squeeze of honey can also be a great idea, to add a touch of sweetness.

Few things make canned collard greens pop like brown sugar does. This simple ingredient does far more work than you might think, and is particularly effective at reducing the greens' bitter notes (which are, incidentally, caused by chemicals called glucosinolates). While any sugar or sweetener can help to do this, brown sugar does so more subtly, imparting a deeper, caramelized, slightly smoky sweetness that doesn't feel too harsh, thereby giving your greens additional layers.

You'll always want to balance any sugar you're adding with some salt, so that your meal doesn't turn into a collard green dessert. If you're using preseasoned canned collard greens, though, adding extra salt may not be necessary. Some brands can be pretty salty, making the need for sugar even stronger. If you find that you've added too much brown sugar, try to get creative with ways to balance it out that don't just involve adding extra table salt. A few dashes of Worcestershire sauce, for example, will give it a boost of sodium, but also extra umami notes and tanginess. Dark and light soy sauce can both serve a similar function.

There's one thing that can quickly make canned collard greens taste delicious: Fat. Adding fat to these greens gives them instant lusciousness, and turns them from a fairly bland, unappetizing vegetable to one that's full of body. The fat you use, however, can make a big difference, and for maximum flavor, add fatback. This pig fat has a strong bacon flavor and a serious saltiness from its curing process that rounds out your greens' flavor instantly. Fatback also adds a seriously good mouthfeel to canned collard greens, taking away their slight grittiness and smoothing out their texture.

To cook canned collard greens with fatback, you first have to fry your fat. Place a few strips in a hot pan until it crackles and begins to go crispy, before throwing in your greens. Add some water and any other seasonings of your choice, before simmering everything together. The fatback's flavor will permeate your greens, making every bite salty and savory. While you can also add chicken broth here, it's worth remembering that fatback is pretty salty already, so you don't want to overdo it. Taste-test it before serving, and only add more salt if you need to.

Canned collard greens serve as the perfect base for green stews, and a mainland lu'au stew has to be one of our favorites. This soup is a twist on the Hawaiian lu'au stew, a thick soup made by blending kalo leaves (also known as lu'au) with coconut milk, and frequently served with chicken or squid. Here, canned collard greens take the place of the kalo leaves, which can be trickier to find in the U.S. mainland — and as such, the mainland lu'au stew was born.

This dish smooths out the slightly bitter flavors of canned collards instantly, with the coconut cream, coconut milk, and coconut oil used giving them a luxurious, nutty flavor. Onion and garlic add some savory notes to the stew, with a touch of baking soda helping to temper any acidity or sour notes from the greens. As this stew is blended, you don't have to worry about your collard greens being too chewy or fibrous. When making this with canned collard greens instead of fresh ones, though, make sure you add them just before you blend, instead of cooking them for too long with the other ingredients. This can cause the greens to go grey, ruining the vibrant greenness that makes this stew so enticing.

Ham and beans is an endlessly satisfying, and endlessly tasty dish. It can, however, sometimes err a little bit on the heavy side, with its combination of rich beans and fatty pork sending you for a food-induced nap. So if you want to brighten up your ham and beans, and introduce some earthier tones, add canned collard greens. The greens not only add a pop of extra nutrition to ham and beans, but they also give it some much-needed vegetal flavor notes, stopping it from getting too dense and savory. Plus, they stretch the dish even further — adding them is a great choice if you're cooking on a budget.

Collard greens also pair very well with any fresh herbs you add to this dish, with fresh parsley, in particular, helping to give them an extra lease of life. The combination of collard greens and ham, meanwhile, is a match made in heaven, with the ham's smoky sweetness adding extra depth to the greens. To use the greens, just add them in a few minutes before you're planning on serving the dish, to give them time to warm up and let the flavors infuse.

Butter and collard greens are a timeless combo. If you want to kick things up a notch, though, browned butter collard greens are the way to go. This recipe is the brainchild of Bruce & Eric Bromberg, authors of the "Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook." Although the original recipe calls for fresh collard greens, browned butter still works tremendously with the canned version. While you might not get them as crispy as if you were using fresh vegetables, they'll still be full of deep, nutty, luscious flavor.

The best part, too, is that you only need a few simple ingredients. You start by cooking your butter in a pan for a few minutes, which turns its milk solids a deep brown and intensifies the flavor. Then, throw in your canned collards. It's best to drain them well before doing so, as you don't want to introduce too much moisture into the pan — this can make the finished dish taste dilute. Cook everything together for a minute or two, spritz the mixture with some lemon, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, and serve as a side with your favorite grilled meat.

If you're bored of serving your canned collard greens in the same way every time, try making callaloo. This classic Caribbean soup, which is especially common in Trinidad and Tobago, is more commonly made with taro or dasheen leaves. If you can't find them, though, canned collard greens can work well too, and provide the same earthy, slightly bitter notes. These flavors are a natural fit with the scotch bonnet pepper, okra, fresh thyme, and paprika that go into this dish, creating a complex flavor profile that's simply irresistible.

The beauty of collard green callaloo is that you can enjoy it simply, adding a few choice ingredients to honor the flavor of the greens or bulk it up to make more of a filling meal. One great way to do this is by adding in smoked turkey. The meat gives the callaloo extra richness and makes it more satisfying, with the smokiness deepening the already-smoky flavors in the dish. If you don't have smoked turkey, any smoked meat will do the trick.