Black Kale and Swiss Chard for Picky Eaters
June 29, 2022 2:39 PM   Subscribe

I had a crazy week, lost track of the days and missed the deadline to customize (or cancel) my produce box. I have black kale and swiss chard and no idea what to do with them. I love green kale raw in salad, but the black kale doesn't seem like it would fit with that. And chard? I've made sauteed greens at various times but..

Steamed vegetables are not my thing. I will eat vegetables either raw or stir-fried mostly.

I eat green kale massaged and then as the green in salad. The black kale has a very different texture and I'm wondering if it will work there. I'm guessing it won't? Maybe I could chop it up very finely and sprinkle into a salad based on some other green? I do that with broccoleaf and like it. Any other ideas?

So you're going to say to sautee both the kale and the chard. I know you are. But everytime I sautee greens I totally miss the window and overcook them and they're slimy. And oh yeah, I need some soft of sauce to make them not bitter and preferably to make them a little sweet. But as soon as I add a liquid, we're back to being unable to control to sautee and ending up soggy and slimy.
posted by If only I had a penguin... to Food & Drink (28 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
One thing to note is that your black kale will sit in the fridge in a plastic bag for some time- weeks most likely- and still be fine.

However, you should make this today:
Allow me to introduce you to Kale Caesar.

The most fiddly bit is pushing the eggs through a strainer, it tastes just fine with chopped hard boiled eggs.
posted by rockindata at 2:47 PM on June 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


My favorite chard recipe is to fry potato cubes, garlic, and rosemary, and add chard once it's cooked. Add stems before leafy bits to avoid overcooking. Add salt and pepper to taste, parm would be delicious as well.
posted by momus_window at 2:49 PM on June 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Admittedly I've never found kale or chard to be slimy, even if overcooked, so maybe I'm the wrong person to answer this, but why not incorporate them into a stew or a curry? i.e. embrace the liquid.

That said, for chard, I find 5min at medium heat is the sweet spot for cook time. I've never found good chard to be bitter myself though, especially not with a fruity olive oil.
posted by coffeecat at 2:50 PM on June 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Lazy cook here. I don't do leafy greens often, but generally what I do with them is this:

- rinse them out thoroughly and just shake em dry
- rip them up into pieces stem and all
- throw a chunk of bacon (I buy bacon on sale, hack it into servings, and freeze them, but let's say 3-4 slices) into my biggest skillet
- turn the heat on low medium
- dump in the greens
- add salt, red pepper flakes, whatever I'm feeling
- nudge everything around and then loosely lid it
- open and nudge occasionally
- when the bacon is cooked your greens are done
- give everything a few real good stirs and let it sit off the heat for a minute

Only extra wet I put in is the dampness from rinsing the greens. I can and will eat a "tomorrow's gastrointestinal concern" quantity of greens this way.
posted by phunniemee at 2:51 PM on June 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


Chard is very mild flavored and can be used anywhere you would use spinach. I regularly use it in these stuffed shells. I have used kale in that recipe, too, but it definitely tastes like kale, still, so ymmv.
posted by hydropsyche at 2:54 PM on June 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


Anna Thomas' s green soup would use up the chard (and maybe the kale too), and is really tasty (and flexible, as you can use whatever greens you have, sub rice for potato, etc.). Since it's pureed, you don't have to worry about overcooking, either.
posted by carrienation at 2:55 PM on June 29, 2022


Once you've sauted the chard, fling some beaten eggs into the pan and make it into an omelette. A bit of cheese added in is especially good for taking the edge off the bitterness; ditto some onions nicely sauted to be a bit sweet. Yum. I just picked my first rainbow chard of the year and it's awaiting this very fate.
posted by penguin pie at 2:55 PM on June 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


The kale will work great in a salad. Cut it up and massage with a bit of salt and oil

Yeah, I prefer cooked chard over raw because I find it a little earthy (think beet greens) and it tends to sweeten up with a light cooking.

Sauteing greens is very similar like a stirfry: It goes fast, you keep everything moving and take them out of the pan just before they are done.

If you want to try one more attempt at a saute, try the following:
Wash the swiss chard and shake dry or put in a salad spinner. Remove the stems and reserve them - they make a fantastic pickle or can be cut into smaller pieces and stir fried another day. Tear the leaves into large bite sized pieces. Thinly slice or use a garlic press on 1-4 cloves of garlic (measure with your heart).

Get out your wok or whatever you like to stirfry in. Add 1 Tbspn of oil to the pan, along with the garlic and a 3-finger pinch of kosher salt. Add a pinch of chile flake if you like spice. Heat up the pan over medium heat*. As soon as the garlic is nicely sizzling and just barely starting to brown on the edges, add in all the kale and start moving everything around - just as you would when stirfrying or if you were tossing a salad. The point is to coat everything in the oil.

Once the chard starts to shrink down a bit, turn off the heat but keep moving it around. Taste a leaf for salt and for doneness. Keep tossing it around and turning it over in the pan. When it has shrunk by half, remove it from the pan, leaving any excess liquid behind.

Squeeze some fresh lemon over the top and maybe a little drizzle of a tasty finishing oil like sesame or extra virgin olive.

*starting with a cold pan and medium heat ensures the garlic gets nicely cooked and doesn't brown or burn. Chard is tender enough that it really doesn't need a lot of heat. The hot oil will do a fair amount of the cooking as you toss it in the pan.
posted by jenquat at 3:03 PM on June 29, 2022


Black kale is the BEST. It’s more tender than frilly kinds of kale so you don’t need to massage it as long for a salad. The stems are also less fibrous a lot of the time so you don’t have to strip them out all the way down, just pinch them off where you don’t have to exert much effort to do so and let the thinner stems up the top of the leaves be prepped the same way you do the leaves.

My favorite way to eat black kale (I typically see it sold as lacitano kale here) is tossed in to a pasta dish. I like to toast cut pasta in a pan with olive oil and then cook it risotto style by adding stock and wine and water and simmering until two thirds cooked. Then I add lemon juice and zest, chopped kale, minced garlic, and a bit more liquid, cover and wilt the greens. Stir that up, add cooked/canned beans like butter beans, gigante beans, navy beans, chickpeas, let those warm through, test the pasta for doneness and finish with parmesan and a bit of butter or fancy extra virgin olive oil and whatever fresh herbs you have. This typically uses up one bunch of kale for a generous two person meal.

I also like to do black kale on a rice bowl. Get neutral oil hot and sauté garlic, ginger, and scallions in it until fragrant. Add chopped kale that is still wet from being washed and toss it in the flavored oil, cover, and let it steam and wilt down. Uncover and cook, tossing regularly so nothing burns, until the pan feels pretty dry. Finish with toasted sesame oil and more fresh scallions, pop onto any kind of short grain rice. Extra good as part of bibimbap with a chili sauce, grilled meats, pickled radish, and bean sprouts, with a fried egg on top. But also quite wonderful with tamari-marinated tofu and chili crisp, or even on its own with nutty brown rice and lots of sesame seeds.

I find I have a lot of the same issues as you when it comes to chard. Black kale is nothing like it and is a much friendlier vegetable in my experience. If you want to try your usual salad, massage it about half as much and give it a taste, see how much more you think it needs, and proceed.

When I have ended up with surprise chard, I’ve used it chopped up raw in a frittata, and it was fine but I think that’s because I put in a ton of other veggies like bell pepper and zucchini and shallots that I had sautéed previously. One time I separated the stalks of chard entirely and cut the stalks up into teeny pieces and tossed that with sherry vinegar, salt and sugar, and used it as part of a topping for plain white fish. That was pretty good, very crunchy. But the chard leaves I had left over I tried to make into a massaged salad and that was a definite mistake.

The most fool-proof way I’ve dealt with unwished for leafy greens of mystery varieties is in a creamed not-spinach. Chop up very fine, cook a whole lot, add garlic and onion, make a bechamel, mix in sour cream and cream cheese, add nutmeg, combine the whole mess together, load it in a baking dish and let it brown a bit on top. Obviously not very healthy, but hey, I didn’t waste those greens!
posted by Mizu at 3:10 PM on June 29, 2022 [5 favorites]


It's not quite the right season (unless you're in the southern hemisphere), but my favorite way to use chard is in a brothy white bean soup. Use the stems in cooking (add them with the celery). Then chiffonade the leaves and place them in the bottom of your serving bowls. Ladle the hot soup over the leaves and it will soften them just enough.
posted by hydra77 at 3:19 PM on June 29, 2022 [4 favorites]


We used to eat Swiss chard just boiled like spinach. It was delicious.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:43 PM on June 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


But you could also use it in egg dished like quiche or omelettes.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:43 PM on June 29, 2022


I made a variation on this recipe for kale, Parmesan, and quinoa patties last night with collard greens; I’ve also made it with chard, spinach, and kale. It’s my go-to recipe for using up sturdy greens, especially when I’m not really feeling like eating a big pile of leaves. It’s super forgiving: I don’t measure or steam the greens—just chop everything up and throw it into the bowl raw; I use cheddar or mozzarella or whatever cheese we have on hand; I toss in whatever alliums I have on hand instead of spring onions.
posted by rebekah at 3:52 PM on June 29, 2022


I usually use chard or kale in pasta sauce or in an Indian simmer sauce or on a pizza. I do usually sauté them first. I don’t find sautéed greens slimy but I wonder if maybe you’re actually not cooking them long enough so that the water they give off is cooked off a bit.

Here are two other recipes that I like with chard or kale. This Madhur Jaffrey side and this easy skillet meal.
posted by vunder at 4:17 PM on June 29, 2022


I like to chop up and stir kale or chard into curry or dahl about five minutes before it's done. Then a little squeeze of lemon!
posted by pazazygeek at 4:19 PM on June 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


Are you sure you find kale slimy? Spinach is super slimy (urk-inducing for sure) but kale has enough bite that it doesn't really get slimy, to my palate at least.

Anyway, chopped kale is great in green curry. Easy to make: Buy a small jar of green curry paste, a small bottle of fish sauce, and a can of coconut milk. Let's keep things simple: sautee onions and carrots and meat or tofu if you want (it's fine without). Add a giant spoon of green curry paste (I like this brand, and will use 1/3 to 1/2 of that tiny 3 inch tall jar for each can of coconut milk. It's tasty but not hot). Dump in the whole can of coconut milk. Add more chopped veggies, like cauliflower, sugar snap peas, and chopped kale. I save broccoli til the end as it can get a bit soggy for my preference. Add a big spoon of sugar, juice of half a lime, and then lots of fish sauce to make it salty. When the veggies are soft enough, stop cooking it. Serve on boiled instant ramen noodles (just boil them for a minute, you can throw away the seasoning packet, but they're the yummiest easiest noodles and they're cheap).

Also tasty and easy: Portuguese caldo verde (green soup). Super quick: Dump a box of chicken broth into a pot and dilute it with another 50% of water. Cook a couple chopped potatoes in it. When they're mostly done, use a potato masher to roughly mash them about 20 times - the goal is to thicken up the soup but leave some chunky potato texture too. Add a couple chopped sausages (you can be fancy with chorizo but I just do good quality beef hotdog frankfurters, the kind that are fully cooked already), and then a ton of chopped kale. Cook til the kale is wilted and whatever sausage you used is cooked enough that it's safe to eat. Don't overthink it. Yummy, salty, easy, comforting!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 5:47 PM on June 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Do you ever eat soups? You can kick this can down the road and chop everything into bite size chunks (strip the ribs out of the black kale, save the ribs but chop small in the chard), blanch for 2 minutes in boiling water, then freeze. The resulting chopped frozen greens you can then chuck in any soup once blessed soup season is upon us once again.
posted by Wavelet at 7:09 PM on June 29, 2022


lacinato kale (black, Tuscan etc) is the only kind I can eat. It's not slimy and it's not bitter. The best thing to do with it is to make a Tuscan bean and kale soup and then reheat it with stale bread the next day for ribollita, but that's awfully heavy and hot for summer. I would chop it fine, saute it down in olive oil adding some garlic towards the end, and then make a frittata with it. Throw the chard in while you're at it. Mushrooms might be good in there too, and some cheese. If you don't mind swine, start the whole business off in some sauteed pancetta, that's the classic Tuscan flavor profile for lacinato kale and it's sooo goooood.
posted by fingersandtoes at 9:44 PM on June 29, 2022


How about some sort of pesto or similar? I made with some tops/greens in my produce box the other week, using anchovies — very easy with a small food processor, successfully tasty on some veggie pasta. You can even freeze into ice cubes (before or after adding oil) for later use.
posted by eyeball at 10:32 PM on June 29, 2022


Also try blanching to mitigate bitterness.
posted by eyeball at 10:38 PM on June 29, 2022


I love sauteed chard stems in a garlicy cashew cream pasta sauce.

Chiffanade the greens and add them to white beans. Make quesadillas.
posted by mezzanayne at 11:20 PM on June 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


Agreeing that the chard can do anything spinach can, so what about a hortopita -- a greens pie? It's OK to use store-bought puff pastry instead of phyllo if you can't find the phyllo.

Regarding the black kale, I made a soup last year at this time using it, and it was glorious. I wanted it to be light and bright because it's summer, so I diced the vegs very finely:
Finely dice an onion, a carrot, a small bell pepper, a potato, and half a fennel bulb. Season with salt and sauter gently till the onions are soft in olive oil. Meanwhile finely dice a cup-worth each of tomato, zucchini, green beans and black kale You can chiffonade the kale, for elegance.
When the onions are soft, season with dried herbs and pepper (I used a teaspoonful of Provence herb mix), add about a pint of water and bring to the boil, then turn down the heat. Let simmer for five minutes, then add the remaining vegetables and let simmer for five minutes. Adjust the seasoning to taste, maybe including a bit of lemon juice, and serve with fresh herbs and grated pecorino cheese on top. With all these vegs, you wouldn't think the kale makes a difference, but it really does.

Black kale is very good for stuffing with things too. Use any recipe for stuffed cabbage you like.
posted by mumimor at 11:30 PM on June 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


I use chard in this recipe for spanakorizo - described here as a Greek version of risotto. I find it very comforting and tasty. I skip the dill if I don’t have any (but better with it) and definitely some cheese, either feta or a Parmesan type cheese, is good.

I’ve made this chickpea, kale and potato curry to use up kale from my vegetable box delivery.
posted by AnnaRat at 12:09 AM on June 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


You can make oven-baked kale chips with the kale. Something like this.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 3:31 AM on June 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


My favorite way to eat chard is with white beans:

In a dutch oven, sautee a diced onion in olive oil until golden. Add 3 minced cloves of garlic, some fresh thyme, red pepper flakes to taste, and cook about one minute. Add one large bunch of chard, just the chopped leaves, cook until leaves wilt.

Add one cup vegetable broth, one can cannellini beans (rinsed), and black pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, smash some of the beans to make a paste (I use a potato masher, but you can just use the back of the spoon) and cook until liquid has reduced, about 10 minutes.

Take off the heat, adjust for seasonings, add one TBSP of lemon juice (though I like it lemony so I usually do the juice of half a lemon), and three or four TBPS of grated pecorino romano (or parm). Add more cheese, because it's delicious. Serve with a drizzle of fresh olive oil and some crusty bread.
posted by lydhre at 7:34 AM on June 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


For the black kale, look for cavolo nero recipes from Italy, like ribollita or infarinata.
posted by lydhre at 7:37 AM on June 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Vinegar is delicious with cooked chard, either steamed or sauteed.

Use chard like spinach in Indian dishes, where it is often cooked well past done and becomes like a sauce. That's super-unpopular in current American cooking, but with good curry spices and some yogurt, it's delicious.

I chop kale and add to soups, where it gets cooked down and adds flavor, texture and vitamins. try the white beans.
posted by theora55 at 12:00 PM on June 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


This black kale salad is my go-to. Always a big dinner party hit. I use ground up almonds instead of bread crumbs if I'm doing low-carb. You massage the kale in the dressing a few hours ahead of time. It's hearty enough to eat any leftovers the next day.
posted by egeanin at 9:07 AM on July 1, 2022


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