Classic Southern Style Mustard Greens can be prepared lighting fast and super simply thanks to the help of a slow cooker. Greens just don’t get much easier than this – we’ll build maximum flavor in minimum time with our Slow Cooker Mustard Greens recipe. Read on to learn a little about these gorgeous greens, or jump ahead to the recipe, if you prefer.

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If you’re totally seeing green (like me, always) you might also want to check out: Pasta with Mustard Greens and Crispy Sausage, Ultimate Southern Mustard Greens, or Vegetarian Mustard Greens.

What are Mustard Greens?

Mustard greens have broad, deeply green, frilly leaves that carry long veins throughout the length of their leaves. The leaves are anchored by thick, coarse stems that are tough and very fibrous – not good for eating. Smaller mustard green leaves are much more tender than the large ones and can actually be eaten raw, whereas the larger leaves really do need to be cooked. They’d be too hard on the stomach otherwise! Trust me.

I mean, you can eat all mustard greens raw but I’m not sure I’d advise it, is all I’m saying. More on this in a bit.

More on these Slow Cooker Mustard Greens

In sum, Mustard Greens have a pleasantly crunchy texture and a very bold, peppery flavor that carries notes of both horseradish and freshly cracked black pepper.

For more information about these and other great greens, I highly recommend you check out the book, The Vegetable Butcher. I own a copy and absolutely love it. I’ve learned so much from Cara. She founded a company called Little Eater, and it’s awesome.

My favorite greens recipe ever in is my cookbook, Smoke, Roots, Mountain, Harvest, and can be made with Mustard Greens instead of the collards called for in the book, incidentally. It’s called “Greens, Eggs, and Ham,” and it’s the best.

What to serve Mustard Greens with?

Need a few great serving suggestions for your glorious greens? I’ve got you. Here are a few wonderful things that are perfectly suited to accompany a big pile of flavorful greens.

The Best Ever Mac and Cheese (Red Curry Mac and Cheese)

Pork Tenderloin with Mushroom Sauce

Best Angel Biscuits

Blackberry Balsamic Pork Tenderloin

How to work with Mustard Greens

Mustard Greens are really quite easy to work with. They are very hearty, easy to trim, shred, cut, etc. and they stand way up to a whole lot of cooking. You can cook these babies to the edge of death and back and they’ll be like, oh that? THAT WAS NOTHING WE’RE FINE. In fact, mustard greens basically beg to be cooked. I don’t recommend eating them raw – this isn’t kale. We’re not just going to massage them a little with some vinaigrette and call it good.

As such, I think this truth really underscores why I love making my hearty, dark greens in a slow cooker. They were born to cook this way, mustard greens, and the long, slow cook just suits them. I mean, you definitely can just give them a sauté in some oil in a skillet to cook them – that works, too. But I love me some cooked-to-death greens and their is no better vessel for the death cook than a cook pot. Yes, the ole’ Crock Pot death cook is a thing. However I should probably not call it that …

Anyway, here are some solid tips for making the most of your mustard greens

Wash the daylights out of them.
And then go right ahead and wash them some more. You do want to make sure that the earth from whence these greens came is not, in any way, still clinging to the leaves. Just really rinse them good, drain enthusiastically, and the proceed with the next tip (or put them in your salad spinner!)
Pull the leaves from the stems (see below for more deets).
Depending on how you plan to serve them, you can eat mustard greens whole or shredded/chopped. If you’re cooking them, as we’re doing here, then you don’t need to bother shredding them. This is because they’ll break down and get so soft and tender that it doesn’t matter one way or another. If you want to serve the smaller, more tender leaves raw in a salad, say, then you’d do well to give them a nice shredding with your chef’s knife. Just stack them up in a big pile and run the sharp blade down the length of it, creating nice clean ribbons of mustard green.
These babies are BITTER, let me tell you. Of all the dark, leafy greens, mustard greens really do pack a punch in the flavor department, and I think they require a bit of finessing and flavor balancing to make the most of what they’ve got going on. So, I like to cook them in stock (not water) and I use a pinch of sugar, a little smashed garlic, some crushed chili flakes, and maybe most importantly – vinegar.

Can you eat Mustard Greens raw?

Yes. That’s the short answer. You can eat mustard greens raw. The smaller leaves tend to be much more tender, less fibrous and tough, and will make for more pleasurable eating. You could give them a rough chop and throw them in a simple salad, leaving them in their raw state. They’re so peppery and flavorful, that adding them to something like a salad would be almost like adding seasoning. Pretty cool.

That said, I think mustard greens are best eaten when cooked. They really shine this way, and their deep flavor sort of settles into itself, combining with the other ingredients that you add and just being the BEST.

That said, eat them however you like. Raw. Cooked to death. It’s all fair game. Fare game? Yes.

Great ways to use fresh Mustard Greens

You could throw some raw mustard greens into this salad.

Use them as the greens of choice in a beautiful West African Peanut Stew (Maafe).

Use some shredded small mustard leaves in this healthy, wholesome bowl.

Can you eat mustard green stems?

Also yes. And this was actually something that gave me pause when I began to really dive into working with greens and developing my recipes for the Southern greens collection on this site. I was all like, ummmm what’s the deal with the stems? They’re kind of all over everything and can I eat them or what?

Now. Most recipes will have you trim and pull the leaves away from the stems. As such, it’s a good rule of thumb to just look for greens that are sold in bags, and that have already been trimmed for you. This is why I use Nature’s Greens. They’ve done all that work for me, and they’ve also washed the greens very thoroughly as well.

How to trim Mustard Greens

If you by your greens in whole bunches, you’ll need to simply do the trimming yourself. Here’s how I do it:

Working on/over a sink, grab the stems with one hand and pull the leaves away with the other. Dispose of/compost the stems or save them for a great stock (perfect addition to veggie stock, y’all).

If you have some stems and bits of stems remaining, it’s all good. You can eat them. It’s just nice to try and rid the leaves of as many as you can. Then call it goo. Cause it is.

What you’ll need to make our best Mustard Greens in the Crock Pot

1 TBSP olive oil
1 lb. fresh mustard greens, washed and tough stems removed (I always use Nature’s Greens)
1 smoked turkey drumstick or ham hock
1 cup diced onion
1 garlic clove, smashed
½ tsp granulated sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 TBSP apple cider vinegar
½ tsp crushed red chili flakes
4 cups chicken stock/broth

How to make these Slow Cooker Mustard Greens

The true blue beauty of slow cooker recipes comes in the fact that you can usually just dump all of the requisite ingredients into the sleeve of the slow cooker, cover, crank the dial to your desired temp (low or high) and then let it do it’s thing. Easiest way to cook on tha planet, and this Mustard Greens recipe really just proves that fact.

For example, these are literally the entire recipe directions:

Add all ingredients to a slow cooker, cover, and cook on high for 4 to 6 hours or on low for 6 to 8 hours. (TIP: I add everything in the order listed, and stir gently to mix a bit before slow cooking).