The brain is one of the softest organs in the human body and is protected from mechanical perturbation by the skull. In contrast, the enteric nervous system of our intestines is embedded in a compliant contractile tissue and is constantly subject to high mechanical strain. Here we investigate the mechanical properties of enteric ganglia in the adult mouse gut by combining atomic force microscopy, immunohistochemistry and collagen I mapping by second harmonic generation microscopy. We find that collagen is most enriched in the submucosa and could image the thin collagen shell surrounding each enteric ganglion. Smooth muscle was the stiffest tissue in the gut. The relative stiffness of ganglia, submucosa and epithelium is respectively 70%, 25% and 70% that of the muscle, indicating that myenteric ganglia are softer than the surrounding musculature, and that the softest part of the gut is the collagen rich submucosa. We could not detect a contrast of stiffness between neural and glial cells. We conclude by discussing the mechanically supportive role attributed to glial cells in the light of previous studies in the central nervous system.