Wilted Southern Greens Recipe – Eastern Style
2013
This Southern Greens recipe provides a a new way to get greens into your diet. Leafy greens are one of the best foods you can eat for your health and healing the body. They are rejuvenating, balance your hormones and make you feel and look great. The problem is getting enough in our diet. So I am always open to and looking for ways to get more. This recipe does just that and makes a wonderfully tasty side dish as well.
This Southern greens recipe can be eaten without a dressing. Try just a little salt and pepper, but even without they taste great. You can also add a dash of your favorite spices or seasoning. A little garlic and onion powder can give it a little extra zip as well.
This time I decided to try making them with a sesame ginger dressing and they were delicious. We all loved them this way and so I am happy to share the recipe with you!
Traditionally Southern greens are boiled but in our raw food recipe we are dehydrating them to soften them. In order that they don’t dry out, think kale chips, rub just a little oil on the outer surface of the leaves so that they stay soft.
Wilted Southern Greens Recipe
Ingredients
4 cups of Greens – choose one or a variety of these: Collards, Chard, Kale, Spinach, Mustard Greens, Beet Greens, Turnip Greens etc
1 Tbsp Olive oil
Directions
Wash greens and remove any tough stems from greens. Drain and pat dry if very wet to remove excess moisture. They can be a little damp, but not dripping. Then take a little olive oil and massage it into the greens with your hands so most of both sides of the greens gets covered. Set oiled greens on a teflex sheet and dehydrate for 3 to 4 hours, until soft and wilted.
Wilted Southern Greens Recipe with Sesame Ginger Dressing
Ingredients
1 batch of Wilted Southern Greens
1 Tbsp Sesame Ginger Dressing
Directions
Follow directions for making wilted greens and then after taking them out of the dehydrator, mix the greens with the dressing in a bowl and serve. Easy and delicious!
Sesame Ginger Dressing Recipe
Ingredients
¼ cup Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Sesame Oil
1 Lemon – juiced
1 Tbsp Agave or Honey
1 Tbsp Tamari
1” Ginger – grated
1 Garlic clove – minced
Dash of Cayenne
Directions
Whisk ingredients together in a bowl or blend together in a blender.
Photo Description
These are the greens that I used. Often I will use more mature greens like: collards, Swiss chard, beet greens or kale. This is a great way to use greens too tough for a salad. Dehydrating will soften them and break down their fibrous cell walls, making them more tender. Use what you have and experiment, many different greens work with this.
Measure out 4 cups, unless you want to double the recipe and make more.
Wash greens and then drain well or pat dry with a clean tea towel.
In a bowl, or right on the teflex sheet as I did, massage a tablespoon, or even slightly less, of oil into the greens. I just poured a little over the greens and rubbed it in with my hands. A little messy but it will leave you with soft hands, and with the greens well coated.
You can sprinkle with a little salt, pepper or other seasoning at this point. I left mine plain as mom is low salt and I knew I was adding a dressing later on.
Set in the dehydrator and dehydrate for a few hours. I dehydrated these for 3 hours. They look better scooped up in a bowl and tasted way better than they look. They’re quite delicious.
While the greens are dehydrating, you can mix up the dressing. This sesame ginger dressing is a delicious change for tossed salads as well, especially with Asian vegetables or vegetables that go well with sesame and ginger: bok choy, cilantro, nappa cabbage, bean sprouts.. ooh, I am inspired again! But I’ll get back to this recipe!
Assemble dressing ingredients
I like to grate ginger with this little grater. It works really well and really breaks up the fibers of the ginger root releasing the flavor right away. Put all ingredients in a bowl.
Whisk together. I love my little whisk as well. I got it from Ikea and it works great!
When the greens are done dehydrating, transfer them to a bowl and add a little dressing. I found one tablespoon was lots. Stir together well and serve. This is a great, really tasty and super nutritious combo!
