Instant Pot Collard Greens (Southern-Style Recipe) (2024)

Instant Pot collard greens are a comfort food dream come true. They're soft and silky, meaty and full-flavored like the long-cooking southern-style recipes that inspired them, but they're ready in about 45 minutes.

Why we love this recipe

Traditionally cooked southern-style collard greens are comfort food to the max, even for those of us vegetable lovers with no special personal connection to the south. But when cooked low and slow on the stove, collards take several hours to become soft, tender, and full of robust flavor.

That's why I love to use the Instant Pot for this recipe, which tenderizes the greens and creates just enough silky sauce to coat the leaves with a mere 12 minutes of pressure cooking. This recipe:

• Makes silky, tender collards
• With just enough gorgeous, flavorful sauce to cling to the leaves
• Is ready in 45 minutes from start to finish
• Makes a great accompaniment to our BBQ pulled chicken, mac and cheese, and cornbread

A word on history

I want to pause for a moment and acknowledge that the culinary history of collard greens is complicated, and that I'm not an expert in that history. For many years, my expertise has included helping people learn to cook and enjoy vegetables — but that's not all there is to eating.

While developing this recipe, I've learned more about the paths by which collard greens were brought to North America by enslaved Africans in the 1600s. If you're interested in this topic too, you might like to read some of the resources I encountered, including:

• This exhibit from the LATIBAH Museum in North Carolina
• This discussion about the African history of collards from WBUR
• A 2016 controversy on cultural appropriation as described in the Atlantic

And to step back for a moment, one of the very best things you could do with your time, regardless of when you encounter this recipe, is to download and listen to the 1619 Podcast by the New York Times. It's brilliant and brimming with what should be American History 101, but isn't.

What you'll need

Here are the ingredients you'll need to make this recipe, and some tips for choosing them.

• Bacon: You want truly thick, meaty bacon for this recipe. Buy slab bacon or, like I usually do, bacon that's sold sliced about ¼-inch thick. Either way, cut it into small bite-sized pieces.
• Apple cider vinegar contributes a touch of tangy brightness to this recipe without being overly assertive.
• The onion contributes moisture to this recipe, which is necessary for pressure cooking. So don't skip or skimp on this ingredient.
• Collard greens often come with a lot of grit still in tow, so be sure to wash them well. I like to remove the stems and chop the greens before submerging and jostling them in several changes of water in my salad spinner.
• We use sweet Hungarian paprika and red pepper flakes
• UPDATE 1/2/2021: Chicken broth: In the six-quart IP, I — and hundreds of you — had always found that the greens and onion themselves released enough moisture for pressure cooking without added liquid. However, on New Year's Day I received two reports of people getting burn notices. I suspect there was a difference in the liquid content of the ingredients compared to those I have used. To be safe, I've added ½ cup chicken broth to the recipe.

How to make it

You'll be amazed how quickly these greens cook down in the Instant Pot. You can see all the steps in action in the video that accompanies this post.

1. Prepping the greens before you start cooking is key. Use a knife to remove the stems. (You can discard the stems or save them for juicing.) Then stack the leaves and cut them in half lengthwise. Stack again and cut crosswise into short strips. Then wash well in several changes of water. I like to do this in my salad spinner, or you can do it right in a clean sink. Dry the greens a bit, but you can leave some water still clinging to them.
2. This recipe is designed for the 6-quart Instant Pot. I don't often use the sauté function on the IP, but in this recipe it's important to cook the bacon, onion, and garlic a bit before pressure cooking. The bacon goes in first and cooks until some of the fat is rendered.
3. Use the apple cider vinegar to deglaze the pot (which means dissolving and scraping up the browned bits on the bottom of the pot), and then add the rest of the ingredients.
4. Cook on high pressure for 12 minutes and then do an instant pressure release. Give the greens a stir and they're good to go!

Expert tips and FAQs

How to serve it

This recipe is great with:

• Cornbread muffins
• Mac and cheese (baked or Instant Pot)
• BBQ pulled chicken

More favorite collard greens recipes

• Wraps you'll actually crave
• Couve a Mineira

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