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pressure cooker collard greens in a bowl

Pressure Cooker Collard Greens with Bacon

Jenni Cole
4.63 from 8 votes
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Additional Time 5 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Servings 4
Calories 129 kcal

Equipment

Ingredients
  

  • 2 teaspoon garlic cloves minced
  • 1 onion diced
  • 2 teaspoon oil
  • 1 teaspoon sweetener brown sugar, honey, white sugar, or monk fruit
  • ⅛ teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 4 slices bacon cut in half (or a smoked ham hock)
  • 2 bunches collard greens washed, trimmed and cut (about 16 med-large greens)
  • 1 cup chicken broth

Instructions
 

Cleaning Collard Greens

  • QUICK TIP: Buy a large bag of pre-washed cut collard greens to skip the cleaning step. We had garden-grown greens and needed to take extra steps to remove the fine bits of hidden dirt. If you buy whole collard green leaves you'll still need to wash them, but probably not as crazy thorough as needed with garden-grown collards.
  • If you also have homegrown greens or collard leaves, be sure to Google How to Clean Collard Greens before proceeding to the recipe.

Prepping the Greens

  • After making sure the greens are thoroughly washed and rinsed, dry them with a paper towel.
  • Stack each green on top of the other.
  • You'll want to remove the tough large stem at the bottom, the easiest way to do this is to cut a large, thin V in the stack of greens all at the same time. 
  • Roll the greens in a tight narrow roll (like a fruit roll-up or cigar shape). Cut the greens into narrow slices.

Saute

  • Turn the Instant Pot to Saute High, you'll be ready to start cooking once it says Hot on the control panel. Add about 2 teaspoon of high heat cooking oil to the pot.  While it might seem odd to add grease to bacon, the touch of extra oil helps to keep the bacon from sticking to the pan. (And less stick means less likely to ever get a burn signal during cooking).
  • Cook the bacon for 4-5 minutes until crisp, flipping half-way to make sure it gets evenly cooked. Remove it from the pot but leave the grease in there to cook the onions in.
  • Saute the onion for 5 minutes or until they've started to soften, add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute.
  • Add the chicken broth and vinegar, and with a large spoon or spatula, scrape up all the food bits from the bottom of the pan to deglaze it. Scraping up the bacon bits and seasoning on the bottom of the pot is important to help avoid getting a burn signal.
  • Add the collard greens, sweetener of your choosing, and the red pepper flakes. Be sure to press the chopped collard greens down into the liquid, as much as possible. The collard greens will fill up the entire pot, yet just like spinach or kale, they cook down and will shrink considerably.

Pressure Cook

  • Put the lid on the pot and cook on Pressure Cook High for 12 minutes, some models might call this Manual. Our Instant Pot took 5 minutes to comes to pressure.
  • Do a natural release of pressure for 5 minutes before doing a quick release.
  • Serve the pressure cooker collard greens with bacon warm with lots of pot liquids (aka potlikker), enjoy!

Notes

  • Use pre-washed and cut greens to save time and skip the collards cleaning process.
  • Change up the recipe by using this process to cook kale or mustard greens, or use multiple greens in one pot.
  • Swap the bacon for smoked meats like turkey, sausage, ham, or smoked turkey wings.
  • Mix in precooked black eyed peas for a one dish meal.
  • Increase the spice by adding even more red pepper flakes or add a diced jalapeno.

Nutrition

Serving: 1gCalories: 129kcalCarbohydrates: 5gProtein: 4gFat: 11gSaturated Fat: 3gPolyunsaturated Fat: 2gMonounsaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0.04gCholesterol: 16mgSodium: 367mgPotassium: 115mgFiber: 1gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 279IUVitamin C: 4mgCalcium: 25mgIron: 0.3mg
Keyword bacon, Instant Pot, keto, mustard greens, pressure cooker, vinegar
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