Ground Pork Stir Fry with Collard Greens

Ground Pork Stir Fry with Collard Greens gets bright, lively flavor from a tasty miso ginger sauce. Excellent with a glass of Semillon from L’Ecole No. 41 or a Côtes Du Rhône Viogner. Disclosure: The wines suggested here as pairings were received as complimentary samples.

Pork and collard greens are certainly not strangers. But the typical combination in Southern cooking would be cooking collard greens with ham hocks, or in my case, bacon.

I don’t tend to get ground pork too often. If anything, I might get it to add along with some beef to a Bolognese sauce. But one month, I had a couple packets of ground pork from our Walden Local Meat Share, so I was read to get creative.

Earlier in the year, I had good luck putting together a miso based sauce for this Turkey Cabbage Skillet (paired with a Pouilly Fumé, wine pairing friends). So I decided to use a similar sauce for this Ground Pork Stir Fry, and cook it along with some healthy collard greens. The results were delicious!

If it’s cabbage you have on hand but you want to try a similar recipe, give our Ground Pork and Cabbage Stir-fry a try.

Jump to:

• How to cook ground pork for stir fry
• Variations
• Pairing from L’Ecole No. 41
• A Rhône Pairing
• Recipe card
• Wine pairings for Asian food

How to cook ground pork for stir fry

Here are a few tips for cooking this ground pork stir fry. Head on down to the recipe card for all the details:

• Make the sauce first and set it aside. This is the way to go with any stir fry, as things go quickly once you start cooking!
• Have veggies chopped before you start cooking. See above about things going fast!
• Get onions and peppers cooking before adding the ground pork.
• Stir fry the pork frequently for about 3 minutes, until it starts turning white on the outside.
• Add collard greens after the pork has been stir fried for 3 minutes. Then you add the sauce, and finish the dish by simmering it, covered, for 5 to 7 minutes.

Note that simmering the ground pork, covered, at the end of the cooking is not a typical stir fry method. But in this recipe, it is a good way to make sure the pork gets cooked through. It also helps all the flavors of the sauce and pork meld together nicely.

Variations

We have made this ground pork stir fry a few times since we initially published it. You can definitely mix up the vegetables based on what you have on hand!

One successful variation had us using cabbage instead of collard greens, and also added some summer squash. That was a tasty combination, and good way to use our seasonal vegetables!

In addition to using basic green cabbage as suggested above, we have also swapped Napa cabbage in for the collard greens. That worked well.

Pairing from L’Ecole No. 41

Today’s recipe and pairing is my contribution for the first Wine Pairing Weekend event of 2021, Saké & Other Pairings for Asian Foods. Thanks to Camilla for hosting!

Today’s pairing was my chance at some redemption.

The good folks at the Washington winery, L’Ecole No. 41, sent me a sample for #MerlotMe month in October. I thought, hmm, pork and Merlot tend to work, and opened their bottle to go with my first edition of this ground pork stir fry.

I liked the L’Ecole Merlot, it just wasn’t a great match for the Asian flavors of the dish – miso, soy and ginger. I realized this needed a white wine, and mused it might work with another L’Ecole wine I’ve tried, their Semillon.

A winning pairing with Semillon

As luck would have it, after #MerlotMe month, the L’Ecole team sent some additional samples. They invited a number of us to join some of their team, including winemaker Marcus Rafanelli, for a virtual tasting and chat. And one of the bottles they sent was the Semillon. A perfect chance to pair it with our ground pork stir fry!

Semillon is used in White Bordeaux blends, and is actually the third most planted white grape in France, according to Wine Folly.

Semillon is a full bodied white wine that can also be very good on its own, and I’ve always been a fan of the version from L’Ecole.

We had the 2019 Columbia Valley Semillon ($15, 13.5% ABV) from L’Ecole No. 41 to serve with the pork stir fry. With honeysuckle on the nose, I got white pear fruit with a hint of lime on the palate. Also some notes of vanilla and hazelnut. The winery tasting notes also mention lemongrass, another hint that the wine could be a good match for Asian cuisine!

The L’Ecole Semillon is full-bodied, so that it is a better match for the ground pork than some other whites I might typically choose for Asian food. The wine also has a lot of nuanced flavors that pick the vibrant ginger and miso flavors of the sauce. An excellent pairing!

The 2019 L’Ecole Semillon is comprised of 88% Semillon and 12% Sauvignon Blanc from the Columbia Valley. I hadn’t bought this wine in awhile, and had forgotten what a great value it is for the quality and complexity – just $15 on the winery website!

A Rhône Pairing

After first pairing this stir fry with a Semillon from Washington state, we recently tried a version of this dish with a Côtes Du Rhône Viogner. Another great option!

The 2020 Chateau Beauchene Viognier ($18, 13.5% ABV) has notes of lemon peel on the nose. On the palate, I get Meyer Lemon, honey and peach fruit. Also a bit of caramel, perhaps from the 6 months of oak aging it sees. There is also some underlying minerality.

We were very pleased with how the Viogner pairs with the pork stir fry! The tasting sheet also suggests goat cheese, shellfish, or white fish with lemon or butter sauce.

For more pairings like this one, check out the Côtes Du Rhône pairings that we served up with our Grilled Sirloin Steak recipe.

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Recipe card

Wine pairings for Asian food

Check out some more great wine pairings for Asian food from the Wine Pairing Weekend crew!

• An Affordable and Aromatic Gewürztraminer Paired with Thai Red Curry by Crushed Grape Chronicles
• Asian Appetizers Paired With Tozai Sake by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Cashew Chicken With A Crisp Riesling by Our Good Life
• Ground Pork Stir Fry with Collard Greens by Cooking Chat
• Knocking off CPK While Sipping SMV Riesling by Exploring the Wine Glass
• Japanese Sake and Octopus Salad by Avvinare
• Our Osechi Ryori おせち料理 (Japanese New Year’s Food), Other New Year’s Eve Traditions, + Recent Saké Explorations by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Rosé with Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup by The Quirky Cork
• Steak and Saké Night at the Culinary Cabin by Somm’s Table
• Sushi and Wine? Totally Fine! Here’s a Few to Try in 2021 by Wine Predator
• Tio Pepe Fino Sherry and Sushi/Sashimi: A Match Made in Heaven! by ENOFYLZ Wine Blog