Saute Collard Greens In This Rich Ingredient For A Serious Flavor Boost

Collard greens are a quintessential part of African-American culinary heritage, and an integral ingredient in Southern comfort food. In terms of flavor and texture, they sit somewhere between cabbage and spinach — earthy and robust, with a slightly bitter edge. While one common way to cook them is to boil them in a smoky, meaty broth, if you want to give these greens a serious flavor boost, you should try sauteing them in brown butter, a rich ingredient that adds tremendous depth to most dishes it comes in contact with.

Brown butter is made by heating regular butter in a pan till the color starts changing. This happens because of the Maillard reaction being triggered by the heat (it makes sense that the science behind perfectly seared steaks also turns butter from an indulgent ingredient to an absolute flavor bomb). Where butter is a warm and comforting fat, brown butter brings deep, nutty notes to the party. 

One of the best ways to use brown butter is to saute greens in it. The first step is to prep your greens, which involves washing out all the grit and boiling them. If you're using canned greens, you can skip the boiling, but make sure you drain out all the liquid from the can. As for the butter, the key is not to let it burn. As soon as the butter starts turning brown and smelling nutty, toss your cooked greens into the pan and saute for a few minutes. With very little effort, you've got yourself a great side dish that's both healthy and delicious.

Collard greens are extremely nutritious, packed with fiber, protein, as well as calcium and vitamins. Like many greens, the flavor of collared greens are impacted by seasonality. While they mostly have a natural earthy flavor, occasionally bordering on bitter, if you're buying collard greens harvested in the winter, they're likely to be slightly sweet. Either way, marrying these robust, chewy greens with brown butter perfectly rounds off their earthiness and coats each leaf in deep, richly flavored glaze.

There are a few more tricks you can use to elevate collard greens (even canned greens) even further that pair perfectly with the brown butter. Adding onions and garlic is a great way to enhance any leafy vegetable. All you need to do is gently fry the onions and garlic in the brown butter before adding the collard greens to it. You can even cook the onions slightly longer to begin with, so that their caramelized sweetness complements the toasty butter.

Because of their natural earthiness, collard greens pair extremely well with smoky flavors, and adding a dash of smoked paprika to warm in the butter before you add the greens will make your dish pop. If you don't enjoy bitter notes in your food, you can try adding a pinch of brown sugar to the butter as you brown it. If you're in the mood for experimenting, one good rule of thumb is to take your favorite kale recipes and use collard greens instead.