I caught up with a friend from NC yesterday, and we chatted about missing our home states, so I was inspired to cook a NC recipe. I ended up modifying a recipe that might be one of my new favorites, holy crow! It was fabulous, and now that it’s home taste-tested approved, I can’t wait to make it for her and her hubs. I’ll have to make a double batch though, because it was so good I wanted to eat it all. ALL.

I haven’t cooked much with collard greens, but I love greens, and I don’t discriminate. Since some of the greens that I don’t often cook with are so packed with vitamins and minerals, I’ve been changing things up. While this recipe took a while to wilt, it was easy.

Wilted Collard Greens

• 2 TBSP coconut oil
• 2 yellow onions, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 quarts chicken stock/broth
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 TBSP raw honey
• 6 strips bacon, cut into pieces
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 bag collard greens

Melt oil in wok and sauté onions until browning. Add garlic cloves and toss for a couple of minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients except the greens and bring to a boil; let boil for about 5 minutes, and then add the entire bag of collard greens. Let greens wilt until cooked down, which took a while. This could be shortened by higher heat and/or using less broth. Depends on your preferred wilt 🙂 The flavor was so intense though and I think that’s in large part because they wilted for so long! The spice of the red pepper flakes gets you after the fact, so if you like spice, add more to your taste!

In just the collard greens alone, here are the vitamins we had: vitamin A, E, C, K (the entire bag has 2,880%!), B6, calcium, thiamin, niacin, folate, phosphorus, copper, beta carotene  alpha carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, iron, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, magnesium, and manganese. Super food!

Full disclosure: this recipe was modified from the Cut ‘N Clean Greens recipe for Southern Style Cut ‘N Clean Country Greens. I replaced the vegetable oil with coconut oil, added more garlic, used bacon instead of ham hocks, and replaced the refined white sugar with raw honey.