Ale-Braised Collards With Ham Recipe (2024)

The cider vinegar, ale, red pepper & sugar are a spicy sweet & sour complement to the collards. Blanch the collard greens for 3 minutes in boiling water before adding to the mix of ingredients, & you won't have to cook them for 2 hours - they'll be deliciously infused with the flavors of this dish, with out becoming limp and overcooked - perfect at 30 minutes. If you want to make this the main course, add some small white beans.

Or black eyed peas!

You can't cook a ham hock in 30 minutes. And if you cook the greens for two hours to try to cook the ham hock, you'll have mush. Start the ham hock simmering in water 3 or 4 or even 5 hours before you start everything else. When you're ready to start the greens, reduce the ham water down to about two cups, and make the rest of the recipe more or less as written.

I would braise the ham hock first in the braising liquid, then add the greens. You need about 45 minutes, for that step, and it gives you an opportunity to adjust any seasonings. Your liquid is what the greens will taste like.

I mix the garlic with 2 teaspoons of minced ginger root. Prick the ham hock with about ten whole cloves. Don't be committed to the apple cider vinegar this is a good dish to experiment with all the fancy vinegars you picked up at the market.

Used a scotch ale instead (it was what I wanted to drink) and didn't add any brown sugar but this still turned out very well. Didn't need to simmer much more than 30 minutes to get good flavor and tenderness but let it go 1+ hour. Also sliced into 1 inch pieces because my family prefers smaller bites.

To me, cornbread is the best thing with collards to make a Main Course. Yum, yum!

I replaced the ham hock with 5 pieces of thick cut applewood smoked bacon (rendering the fat and removing before sautéing the onions and garlic) and used anchor brewing co's liberty ale, which was as close to an American amber as I could find. The bacon excepted, I followed the recipe as written (including simmering it for the full two hours) and it came out absolutely delicious. Will definitely be making this again in the near future.

We don't eat pork. Substituted smoked turkey neck for the ham hock. My family loves this and requests this dish for every holiday.

Stock pot sized large batch:
I halved the vinegar to a 1/4 cup. 4 cups of water. 2 cans beer. Used ordinary table sugar. All else per the recipe. Excellent!

I don't understand how you "pull off and chop meat" from a ham hock that has only cooked for 30 minutes. If you want to use a ham hock, you'll have to cook it first, for at least 2-3 hours.

Wow, fantastically good. Followed recipe exactly with the omission of the ham hock since we don’t eat meat. The 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar makes these greens full bodied and deliciously acidic. Served with a pot of black eyed peas and crusty cornbread. Used fresh collards but I will make again when I find freezer bags of collards as that would dramatically reduce prep time of washing the greens and removing the center rib. Will make again.

I tried this recipe for the first time tonight and substituted cabbage in place of greens. It was a hit. Will definitely make this recipe again. Next time I'll halve the water to one cup.

I made this with mustard greens, reducing cooking time to just over an hour, as mustards are less robust than collards. I used a strong IPA, and no ham as partner is vegetarian, and it was delicious!

Here to echo other commenters—braise the hock in a covered pot for several hours first! Then toss the greens in and braise to desired texture, which shouldn’t take too long.

Braised the ham hock for 2 hours, added the collards and cooked them for 1 hour. Perfect.

I make the broth (with the ham hocks) in my pressure cooker ahead of time & then cook the greens in it a bit ahead. Usually about 30-45 minutes is enough for me (I do not like my greens super mushy) but I’ve gone a bit longer because my partner likes them mushier than I do and they’re still delicious. It incorporates the flavor but saves on time especially if you’re cooking a lot (like for Thanksgiving). It’s also easier to transport.

There’s a cookbook called Jubilee. In the book there is a recipe for something called “Soul Stock” regular stock ingredients celery, carrots, onion, garlic,bay leaf black peppercorns BUT uses smoked meat to flavor the stock.

It calls for a smoked ham hock.. so it’s already cooked.. I guess that means you can braise it to get the flavor for however long you want. I did mine in the instant pot. 30 minutes. Cut it up after, most of it was tough and fatty. But added good flavor.

Loved this recipe. I don't know why the recipe calls for American amber ale. I had a bottle of Fat Tire, a Belgian product, on hand and the recipe tasted great. Also just couldn't bear using water instead of chicken bone broth, my normal collard green choice. I took the advice below and braised the ham hock. Good idea.

Amazing! I just finished the last scraps after eating this as leftovers for lunch several days. Looked forward to it every time. Used insta-pot with liquids cut in half. Pre-cooked the ham hocks about 30 min. Made the broth following the recipe, added the collards and pressure cooked for about 15 min. Very very flavorful. Lovely silky texture.

I put in cognac instead of beer and skipped the brown sugar since the cognac contains a good amount of sugar.

This recipe was a hit! Made a few substitutions:- 6 shallots instead of onion - 6 pieces of thickly sliced smoked bacon instead of ham hock (rendered the fat from 5 pieces of bacon in the pot with the onions and garlic after they had cooked for a while, stirring to prevent burning, took the slices out after they'd cooked and chopped them up to add to the collard greens later, and added one more slice when we put the collard greens into the pot, which we removed after 30 mins. Delicious.)

I added two chipotle peppers in adobo sauce instead of red pepper flakes and liquid smoke rather than ham. Used a red lager rather than amber ale, just because I had some. Very happy with the results.

Absolutely delicious! I used smoked turkey necks and a 2 lb package of chopped collards, and I cooked everything 25 minutes on high pressure in my instant pot.

I’m guessing the hammock is smoked, so requiring it to be “done” is a moot point.

I replace ham hock with 4 or 5 piece of thick cut bacon. I cut those into 1/2 inch pieces and cook them first before following the recipe. I used cigar city brewing’s Maduro brown ale for the beer. It turned out great.

Wow, fantastically good. Followed recipe exactly with the omission of the ham hock since we don’t eat meat. The 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar makes these greens full bodied and deliciously acidic. Served with a pot of black eyed peas and crusty cornbread. Used fresh collards but I will make again when I find freezer bags of collards as that would dramatically reduce prep time of washing the greens and removing the center rib. Will make again.