Okra Leaf Recipe – Super Simple Sauteed Okra Greens - Recipes & Me (2024)

Yes… you can eat okra greens! Okra leaves are a little on the coarse side, so many prefer them cooked over raw, such as in this super simple sauteed okra greens recipe.

Don’t have okra greens? No problem! This okra greens recipe works equally well for any of your favorite cooking greens such as kale, chard, collards, and mustard greens.

This will get you started in experimenting with cooking the nutritious okra greens, which are actually commonly used in many African countries, such as Zimbabwe, as well as Asian countries like India and Malaysia.

Sauteed okra and okra leaves… RICH in nutrients and flavor, and not slimy when prepared this way. You can do this with just okra, just okra leaves, or both together, as we did for breakfast.

Other Ways to Cook Okra Greens

Now as gardeners know, okra plants are not overly abundant in leaves. So when we do harvest okra leaves in season, we’re very careful to only plus a couple per plant. While the younger leaves are typically favored, we tend to wait until after the okra plants have played out their blossoming and fruiting for the season before harvesting a lot of okra leaves for okra leaf recipes.

Visit our family’s gardening website if you’re interested in how to grow okra, okra nutrition and more okra recipes.

Our preferred mode of chopping okra greens for pretty much all of the recipes is to chiffonade it.

Add Okra Chiffonade to:

• Egg bake
• Blend into green juice
• Dehydrate and make greens powders for adding nutrition and body to virtually anything
• Ramen / Homemade ramen
• Soups – use in place of kale and other greens in your favorite recipes
• Stir fry
• Veggie burger mix (shredded or ground in food processor

You can cook okra leaves in most of the same ways you’d cook any of your favorite greens. Some of our favorite ways to cook okra greens is to chop them into soups, egg bakes, stir fry and sautees.

While you’re at it, you can also cook this okra leaf recipe with okra pods. Then, right before serving, top the dish off with a couple okra blossoms as edible flowers, for an exotic touch.

However, we might pluck one to decorate the dish (and to eat), but otherwise, we prefer to let the beautiful flowers live out their destiny to become okra pods.

Serving Ideas – What to Eat With Okra Greens and Okra

This okra leaf recipe goes great with whatever foods you normally enjoy with your cooked greens. Some of our favorites include any combination of these complementary dishes:

• Cornbread, black eyed peas and mashed potatoes
• Egg bake for breakfast or any meal.
• In Soups and Gumbos

Notes on This Sauteed Okra Leaf Recipe

The larger the okra leaves, the tougher and more chewy they’ll be. We don’t mind that because we’ve learned that chewy foods that are harder to chew is actually healthier than soft foods.

For more on that, we highly recommend the illuminating, fascinating and important-to-know book: Breath, by James Nestor.

If you only have the older and tougher okra leaves, and you don’t like it that chewy, here are some ways to soften the okra leaves.

For More Tender Okra Leaves

• Omit the lower portion of greens closest to the base of the stem where the thicker stem part is, or remove the greens from around that.
• Chop greens into smaller strips or bites; or you can shred or chop smaller in food processor
• After sauteeing, add water and cover to simmer for ~20 minutes.
• OR, boil greens in a 1/2 cup water, covered, for 20 minutes until soft. While greens are boiling, saute onions, garlic and peppers (and sliced okra pods if using them), then add the boiled greens to the onion pan, and stir in well, then serve.

This same simple okra greens recipe works equally well for any of your favorite greens. From here, you can also add additional seasonings if you prefer.

Simple Boiled Okra Recipe for More Tender Okra

If you prefer your greens to be more tender and less chewy, then you’ll probably want to boil them first. Then you can always add them to the saute pan of goodies.

You may also enjoy this beef vegetable soup with okra.

We’d love to hear how your using okra greens in the comments below or drop us a note.