Weekly Spotlight: Cooking with Dark Leafy Greens!

It’s the season of green!! Working with dark leafy greens and making them taste delicious is a skill, and adding more leafy greens to your plate has many health benefits and can help you feel your best. Dark leafy greens such as collard greens, kale, and beet greens are tougher than other leafy greens, especially tender leafy greens such as spinach and arugula. The darker leafy greens have many health benefits, as well, and learning how to prepare them can amp up your meals.

For learning how to make and enjoy a variety of green foods, with everything from matcha to spirulina and other leafy greens, this weekly spotlight covers it all. You can also find more delicious green eats in this meal plan. For more, check out our 15 Healthy Green Recipes for St. Patrick’s Day!

We also highly recommend downloading the Food Monster App  — with over 20,000 delicious recipes, it is the largest meatless, vegan, plant-based, and allergy-friendly recipe resource to help you get healthy! Don’t forget to check out our Weekly Meal Plan Archives! 

This week, we’re bringing delicious, fully vegan, and plant-based ways to enjoy ways to cook with dark leafy greens!

Cooking with Collard Greens

Source: Collard Greens

Collard greens are a hearty and leafy green that makes a great green to use for wraps and in soups and salads. These meals are great ways to start adding collard greens into your diet or to cook them into something delicious.

• Mediterranean White Bean Collard Green Wraps by Emma D’Alessandro
• Black-Eyed Pea and Collard Green Soup by Rachel Hanawalt
• Collard Greens by Brooke Brimm
• Collard Wraps with a Peanut Ginger Sauce by Robin
• Blanched Collard Wraps by Molly Patrick

Cooking with Kale

Source: California Kale, Orange, Almond, and Mushroom Salad

Kale is another leafy green that’s also delicious when served raw or cooked. To make kale easier to digest when eating it raw, be sure to massage the kale until it turns a brighter green. Kale becomes more tender and easier to eat after it’s massaged. Kale also wilts down well, making it great to add to curries and soups!

• Massaged Kale Salad by Christina Bedetta
• Apple-Chickpea Kale Salad by Caryn Carruthers
• Kale, Potato, and Carrot Curry by Meatless Monday
• California Kale, Orange, Almond, and Mushroom Salad by Rachel Phipps
• Kale and Roasted Almond Quinoa Salad by Julie Zimmer

Cooking with Mustard Greens and Beet Greens

Source: Garlic Beet Greens

Mustard greens and beet greens are excellent to whip up into a delicious dish! Mustard greens have an earthy taste, and beet greens are also sweeter with an earthy taste. These meals use those flavors to their advantage and make them into delicious meals.

• Shiitake, Tofu, and Mustard Greens Soup by Nutritious Delicious: Turbocharge Your Favorite Recipes With 50 Everyday Superfoods
• Lentil and Mustard Green Breadsticks by Gunjan Dudani
• Beet and Lentil Salad With Beet Greens by Nancy Partington
• Garlic Beet Greens by Elaine Lander

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