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Home » Instant Pot » Pressure Cooker Collard Greens with Bacon

Pressure Cooker Collard Greens with Bacon

Published: Jun 17, 2020 · Modified: Jun 17, 2020 by WholeLottaYum · This post may contain affiliate links · Find our privacy policy here

Jump to Recipe

Making pressure cooker collard greens is the quickest way to enjoy classic Southern style greens. This Instant Pot collard greens with bacon recipe has tons of zesty flavor and cook in less than 30 minutes. The greens are also low carb, keto friendly, dairy free, and gluten free….It’s a WHOLE LOTTA YUM!

instant pot collard greens in a pot after cooking

This post may include affiliate links, including links to Amazon products.  Read the full disclosure here.

Instant Pot Collard Greens

While I might be a PNW girl at heart, being that half of my relatives are in the South and I went to college in Georgia, I’ve always had a fondness for southern cooking. It seriously makes the ultimate comfort food to so many people!

Cooking steamed collard greens, turnip greens, and mixed greens was a staple growing up since my step-dad was born and raised in Arkansas. This pressure cooker collard greens recipe is a variation of his that was adapted for an Instant Pot. It doesn’t hurt we planted collards for the first time in our garden this year and we have an abundance of greens!

Serve the Instant Pot collards with Bourbon baked beans and Instant Pot pulled pork that everyone will love and appreciate!

And if you’re always on the lookout for even more pressure cooker recipes, be sure to try our Instant pot corn on the cob or Instant Pot cabbage with bacon.

pressure cooker collard greens in a bowl

Jump to:
  • Instant Pot Collard Greens
  • What Are Collard Greens?
  • ? Ingredients
  • ? Making Instant Pot Collards
  • ? Recipe Tips
  • ?? Common Questions
  • Pressure Cooker Collard Greens with Bacon
 

What Are Collard Greens?

Collard greens are a popular leafy green served in the Southern states that is part of the same family as cabbage and other leafy greens like kale. Collards are typically served slow-cooked with ham hock or other types of smoked meats. They’re sometimes mixed with other types of greens such as turnip greens or kale.

Collards are very healthy with just 11 calories per cup, 0 at, 0.6 net carbs, 36% vitamin A, and 21% vitamin C.

Why You’ll Love the Southern Greens Recipe

  • It’s full of zesty flavor from apple cider vinegar, sweetener, and red pepper flakes.
  • You can easily swap the bacon for other types of meats like ham hock, ham cubes, sausage, or smoked turkey.
  • The pressure cooker collard greens cook under pressure for just 12 minutes, which is much less than a stovetop recipe.
  • You can substitute a large bag of pre-washed and trimmed greens to skip the greens washing process.
  • It’s a side dish that fits with many diets since it’s dairy free, low carb, keto friendly, paleo, GF, and can be sugar free too.

? Ingredients

A printable recipe card is at the very bottom of the post

  • 2 tsp garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 tsp oil
  • 1 tsp sweetener (brown sugar, honey, white sugar, or monk fruit)
  • 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp 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

To balance the flavor of the greens with the vinegar, many people add a sweetener like brown sugar to their recipe. We added in a few alternatives depending on any dietary restrictions you might have. We’ve been using monk fruit as our go-to sweetener these days, which is sugar free, natural, and keeps the carbs down.  Our favorite brand is by Lakanto.

Needed Supplies 

Pressure Cooker– the brand we use

 

?Are you obsessed with air fryer recipes too??  Be sure to download our FREE air fryer cook times cheatsheet 

? Making Instant Pot Collards

The steps included with cooking collard greens in an instant pot include prepping the greens, cooking the bacon and onion in the pressure cooker, steaming the greens under pressure, and then serving along with your favorite Southern sides.

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, here’s a Youtube video on how to wash collard greens.

Prepping the Greens

prep steps for collard greens in a pressure cooker

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 tsp 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 Remaining Ingredients

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!

Be sure to scroll to the very bottom of the post to get the instant pot collard greens tips and tricks, get common questions answered, AND print off the recipe card!

collard greens pressure cooker recipe in a bowl after cooking

? Recipe Tips

  • 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.

Adapting to Diet Restrictions

Low carb/keto– the pressure cooker collard greens are low carb as long as you use a keto friendly sweetener like monk fruit or Swerve.

Gluten free– it should already be GF, but double-check all labels to be certain

Paleo– to keep this paleo, be sure to use bacon with no added sugar and use a paleo friendly sweetener like coconut sugar or honey.

Sugar-free – use honey, coconut sugar, monk fruit, or Swerve

?? Common Questions

How to Store Collard Greens

Cooked collard greens will keep in the fridge for up to 4-5 days. You can also freeze the greens for up to 3 months.

What Should I Serve with Collard Greens? 

The best dishes to serve along with pressure cooker collard greens are even more Southern-style dishes, of course!

  • Cornbread
  • Black eyed peas
  • Ribs, shredded pork, or ham
  • Mac n cheese
  • Coleslaw
  • Baked beans

Instant Pot Mustard Greens?

If you’re looking for a pressure cooker mustard greens recipe and can’t find one (there was none on Google at the time of writing this), you’ll be happy to know that making mustard greens in an instant pot is the exact same process as pressure cooker collard greens! Simply swap the collards for the mustard greens.

More Veggie Sides You’ll Love

  • Roasted Brussel sprouts
  • Pan fried asparagus
  • Mexican street corn salad
  • Cauliflower mac n cheese

More Instant Pot Recipes

  • Pressure cooker baked beans
  • Instant Pot pulled pork recipe 
  • Instant pot corn
  • Instant Pot cabbage with bacon.

Please leave a review if you make our recipe! We love feedback from readers, plus it helps others too. 

Come connect with us on Instagram, and Facebook!

And pin the recipe for later on Pinterest so you can easily get back to it! 

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collard greens in instant pot Pinterest pin

Continue to Content
pressure cooker collard greens in a bowl

Pressure Cooker Collard Greens with Bacon

Yield: 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Additional Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 tsp oil
  • 1 tsp sweetener (brown sugar, honey, white sugar, or monk fruit)
  • 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp 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 tsp 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 Remaining Ingredients

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.

Recommended Products

As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.

  • Lakanto, Monkfruit Sweetener with Erythritol, Golden, 8.29 oz (235g) - 2PC
    Lakanto, Monkfruit Sweetener with Erythritol, Golden, 8.29 oz (235g) - 2PC
  • Hotec Premium Stainless Steel Locking Kitchen Tongs with Silicon Tips, Set of 2-9" and 12"
    Hotec Premium Stainless Steel Locking Kitchen Tongs with Silicon Tips, Set of 2-9" and 12"
  • Instant Pot Omni Plus Toaster Oven, 26L
    Instant Pot Omni Plus Toaster Oven, 26L
  • Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus 9-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker
    Instant Pot Duo Evo Plus 9-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker
Nutrition Information
Yield 4 Serving Size 1
Amount Per Serving Calories 123Total Fat 7gSaturated Fat 2gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 5gCholesterol 13mgSodium 440mgCarbohydrates 8gNet Carbohydrates 4gFiber 4gSugar 2gProtein 7g

Nutrition is just an estimate, and the net carbs assumes a sweetener like brown sugar was added, be sure to manually calculate the ingredients if you're on a special health program.

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram

© Jen Koel

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Comments

  1. Theresa says

    June 21, 2020 at 12:45 am

    do you think I could make this without any sweetener or what that makes it too strong of a vinegar taste? I’m not a fan of anything like this if it tastes sweet. thanks!

    Reply
    • WholeLottaYum says

      June 22, 2020 at 4:19 pm

      The sweetener doesn’t add a sweet taste, it’s just there to balance the slight bitterness of the greens and vinegar. You could try cutting it back a bit? Collard greens have a stronger taste compared to something mellow like spinach so the touch of sweetener helps to balance the dish.

      Reply

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