In this study, collagen was successfully printed using extrusion bioprinting technology by adding it to a gelatin/alginate system. This matrix can better mimic tissue-specific ECM, and HCECs can achieve a high cellular viability of 94.6 ± 2.5% after printing. Meanwhile, the current work presents a useful method to solve the lack of degradation of the alginate matrix in 3D bioprinting by incubating the constructs with medium containing sodium citrate. The degradation time of the alginate hydrogels could be controlled by altering the amount of sodium citrate that was added. The results reveal that, by using this method, the printed cells in the 3D constructs grew faster, had a much better capacity to proliferate and expressed greater specific marker proteins, indicating that this work may help to improve the alginate bioink system for the application of 3D bioprinting in tissue engineering.