Eat your Greens!
Do you eat collard greens? Do you like them? Do you even know if you like them? I’m hoping your answers are yes, yes, and yes, and if so, you’ll love this recipe. But if your answers are no or I don’t know, this recipe for Stuffed Collard Greens is where you should start.
I didn’t grow up eating collard greens. My mother wasn’t an adventurous cook. There were many wonderful dishes on rotation in her kitchen, but if it wasn’t a recipe she got from her mother, her sister, or my Nan Nan (her mother-in-law), she probably wouldn’t have tried it. She did own the Betty Crocker Cookbook, but I don’t remember her pouring over it like I pour over my cookbooks, searching for inspiration. She’d rather get lost in a good novel. I didn’t know anyone who ate collard greens while I was growing up. I didn’t know anyone who ate collard greens while I was in college, and even for a couple of decades beyond that. I didn’t know what I was missing.
We began eating collards when they were included in our CSA box. I was stymied at first – they seems so leathery and unappealing, but if they’re cooked properly, they’re earthy and play nice with others, providing a solid background note to more punchy flavors. At least that’s how they roll in my kitchen.
Stuffed Collard Greens are blanched, then stuffed. You blanch the leaves, lay them flat, add a scoop of filling, roll them up, then bake them. It’s that easy. But what you stuff them with, and what you top them with does make such a difference. Collards can be bitter and bland, or they can be utterly flavorful and comforting. This is another dish, like my Eggplant Rollatini, where the vegetable stands in for pasta, while ground beef, Basil Pesto, and Chunky Red Pepper Marinara round out the flavors. I suppose you could use another type of rice, but why would you? Short-grain brown rice provides a nice chew and a nuttiness that complements the earthiness of the collards and lets the other elements provide the top notes. A true one-dish meal.
This recipe for Stuffed Collard Greens calls for thirteen collard green stems. I know this is an odd quantity, but I’ve found that this is the right number for using up all of the filling. You don’t want any leftover filling – you can always squeeze just one more roll into your baking dish if you have enough leaves on hand, but it’s sad when you have filling left over and no leaves left to stuff.
Stuffed Collard Greens
Equipment
- 9 X 13 inch baking dish
Ingredients
- 13 large collard green leaves
- 1 cup short-grain brown rice
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1/2 onion
- 1 yellow squash
- 1 serrano pepper
- 10 ounces feta cheese
- 1 egg
- 2 T basil pesto (this is not optional)
- 2 T ricotta cheese (optional)
- Parmesan cheese
- bread crumbs
- 16 ounces Chunky Red Pepper Marinara, divided (see note for link to recipe)
Instructions
- Make the rice – I use my Instant Pot in lieu of a rice cooker, but you should pre-cook the rice however you're used to doing it.
- Prep the collards and the veg – Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add 1 T of salt. De-stem the collards. Plunge all of the collard green leaves into the boiling water and boil gently for 10 minutes, swishing them around every so often. Using tongs, pull them out of the water, shaking off as much water as you can, and spread them out on layers of clean kitchen towels. Then roll the towels to squeeze out as much of the water as you can. While the collards are cooking, chop the onion and squash. Remove the stem and the seeds from the serrano pepper, and chop it into a small dice.
- Sauté the beef and the veg – Add the beef and a teaspoon or so of salt to a large pan (if you're not in a hurry you can use the same pot you used to boil the collards). Sauté, breaking the ground beef up up as it browns. When there's not much pink left, add in the onion, squash, and pepper. Salt generously, and continue to cook, until the veg is soft and there is very little liquid left in the pan. Take the pan off the heat and let it cool.
- Preheat the oven and make the filling – Preheat the oven to 350℉. Once the ground beef and veg mixture has cooled, stir in the feta, egg, pesto, and ricotta.
- Stuff the Collards – Pour 6-8 ounces of the marinara into your baking dish and spread it evenly. Unroll the towels and lay the collards out on your counter, arranging them so that you have them evenly apportioned so that you are stuffing each leaf or combination of leaves so that they're approximately the same size. Put a good dollop of the filling at the widest point, fold the top over the filling, squeezing it slightly so that you're making a snug roll, then roll, top to bottom, holding the filling in at both ends. Arrange the rolls in the baking dish.
- Bake – Pour the rest of the marinara across the center of the collard green rolls. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes. Then uncover, sprinkle the Parmesan and breadcrumbs across the top of the marinara, and bake another 5-10 minutes.
Notes
I hope I’ve sold you on eating collard greens, but whether or not you’re convinced that you should, please try this recipe for Stuffed Collard Greens. You might like it. You might love it. Your collards journey has begun!