Collard Green Soup

Smoked turkey, fire-roasted tomatoes, garlic, and collard greens all together in a warm and comforting bowl of delicious soup. Serve this collard green soup with a side of buttery cornbread.

 

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The full recipe with ingredients/instructions is available on the recipe card at the bottom of the post. Important tips/tricks are also included in the blog post.

Start off this soup season with a flavor-packed collard green soup. If you love this soup you'll also love my Hearty Instant Pot Vegetable Soup, Pressure Cooker Lentil Soup with Sausage, or Beet Soup Recipe.

Serve any of these delicious soups with Golden Sweet Potato Cornbread, Classic Southern Cornbread Recipe, or Easy Cornbread Muffins. Seriously, cornbread is the perfect accompaniment to soup.

Ingredients and Tools Needed

• Olive Oil - for softening the aromatics.
• Yellow onion, Garlic - can I make soup without these???
• Smoked turkey wings - this helps bring flavor to this soup. You'll notice I used smoked meat in my traditional collard greens as well.
• Cajun seasoning - for a little bit of a kick.
• Low-sodium Chicken broth - keep it low sodium, or homemade with little salt, to control the salt content.
• Dry black-eyed peas - you can also use canned if need be; add close to the end of cooking if using canned.
• Fire-roasted tomatoes - I add this for added color and flavor. Regular diced tomatoes will work as well.
• Bunch of Collard greens
• Apple cider vinegar - helps balance the dish.
• Salt and pepper to taste - always.

Tools needed for collard green soup:

• Large pot with a lid, 5+ quarts
• Sharp knife
• Cutting board

How to make Collard Green Soup

Place oil in a large pot over medium heat and add chopped onions. Cook and stir until softened, about 4-5 minutes. Add chopped garlic and stir for an additional minute.

Add smoked turkey, cajun seasoning, chicken broth, and black-eyed peas. Increase heat to medium-high heat and bring the mixture to a quick simmer. Allow to simmer for 2 minutes, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover with a tightly fitting lid and allow to simmer on medium-low heat for about 1 hour, until the turkey wing meat becomes tender.

Remove the smoked turkey wing from the pot and shred the meat from the bone. Set aside the meat.

Add roasted tomatoes and collard greens to the pot. Allow it to simmer for an additional 20 minutes until the greens are tender.

Return the meat to the pot and add the apple cider vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste.

How should I chop up my Collard Greens?

Isn't cutting up collard greens pretty straightforward? Sure! But just a couple of tips to ensure a perfect soup.

• Wash and dry collard greens.
• Fold the leaves over themselves, and cut the stems out.
• With the stems cut out, you can roll the leaves into a bundle and cut them into thin strips.

You can also use bag collard greens, which are prewashed and cut. If using bagged greens, make sure to chop these a little finer as well.

Easy substitutions for this soup

Smoked Turkey Legs: Smoked ham hocks are a perfect substitute. Using ham will obviously raise the fat content, but still just as delicious.

Collard Greens: If collard greens are not readily available to you, kale is the most similar and will be just as tasty.

Apple Cider Vinegar: Regular white vinegar is a good replacement for ACV.

Black-eyed Peas: Great northern beans are a good replacement for black-eyed peas in this recipe.

What does adding vinegar do?

When cooking collard greens, or even if you have to supplement kale, adding vinegar to either of these greens will be beneficial. Adding vinegar will cut the bitterness and toughness of these particular greens.

Apple cider vinegar is the more popular option, but white vinegar can work in a pinch as well. Don't be afraid of your soup tasting like vinegar! The flavors we add to the soup will shine through.

Notes

• Try and get smaller-sized smoked turkey wings to ensure they become tender in about an hour. Large pieces will take longer to cook. 
• If subbing canned black-eyed peas for the dried ones, add the black-eyed peas during the last 10 minutes of cooking.

Looking for more soup recipes? Try these out:

• Creamy Carrot and Lentil Soup
• Creamy Yellow Squash Soup
• Oxtail Soup
• Beet Soup Recipe
• Pressure Cooker Moroccan Spiced Soup

 If you have tried this recipe or any other recipe on my blog, please rate it and let me know how it turned out in the comments below!