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The Best Mustard Green Recipes

The leaves, stems, and seeds of the mustard plant are all edible and widely used in cooking. While the greens are utilized in fresh salads, casseroles, frittata, and stews, the seeds are processed into mustard oil and everyone’s favorite condiment: mustard. 

What Do Mustard Greens Taste like?

Mustard greens have a strong peppery, bitter, and slightly tangy flavor much like the mustard you squeeze onto hotdogs and hamburgers. They look and taste similar to spinach with metallic undertones, but are slightly more pungent and vegetal. While raw mustard greens are spicier, the cooked ones are balanced in their overall flavor profile. Similarly, the stems are more peppery than the leaves.

Image Credit: Sahzahan Bhuiyan from Pixabay 

How to Cook Mustard Greens?

Mustard greens are cooked much like spinach or kale. As the stems take longer to cook, make sure you’re only adding stems to dishes with longer cooking times, or cook them first before adding the leaves. Mustard greens can be boiled, steamed, sauteed, fried, or stewed. The fresh leaves can be tucked into sandwiches or tossed into salads.

You can swap mustard greens in any recipe that calls for a leafy green vegetable. However, owing to their overpowering and slightly bitter flavor, it’s recommended to first slightly blanch, or steam them before further cooking. This will also ensure the greens don’t lose their vibrant green color. To be on the safe side, we recommend adding mustard greens in dishes that are slow-cooked so that the pungency of the vegetable is much tamed. Our recipe for Sausage, Corn, Spinach, Potato Bake is a good candidate for experimenting with mustard greens.

Besides, this simple sauteed mustard greens recipe can make an excellent side for your lunch or dinner.

How to Use Mustard Greens?

You can add mustard greens to recipes like Green Shakshouka, Green Pizza, and Spinach Artichoke Chicken Casserole. Mustard greens pair very well with beans, meatballs, sausages, bacon, garlic, corn, or anything that can stand up to the assertive mustard flavor. Sauteed mustard greens can be used in place of pasta, or rice as in our recipe for Meatballs with Greens and Cheese for a more healthy dinner or for anyone with gluten allergies. 

If you want to incorporate mustard greens into your meals? We suggest following these scrumptious recipes by replacing the spinach with mustard greens:

      Goat Cheese, Shallot, Bacon, Spinach Frittata

      Spinach and Mushroom Strata

      Sausage, Beans, and Greens

What are Substitutes for Mustard Greens?

Kale, collard greens, chard, or spinach are good candidates if you plan to swap these in place of the more pungent mustard greens.

Image Credit: Flickr user avlxyz ( CC BY-SA 2.0 )
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