Your New Favorite Kale Salad

I promise you’ll like it – the magic is in the kale massage!

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Recipe Snapshot

Serves: 6

Time: 45 mins

Level: Easy

This salad is the perfect salad for summer. The kale, quinoa, and nuts add heartiness to keep you full, while the citrus dressing gives the dish a light and fresh feel. I love making this salad as a lunch meal prep, in fact I think it was the dish that originally inspired my meal prepping in the first place! The story behind this salad always makes me smile. There is a grocery store located on my college campus that sells a similar type salad, and it sells out multiple times a day. I used to purchase a small container of the salad with my friends when we needed a break from cafeteria food at the end of freshman year. Of course, the first time we all got together the summer after our freshman year, we just had to make our favorite salad. Obviously re-creating from memory always results in a few minor changes, but that’s even better because we made the dish our own! So today I’m sharing with you my favorite salad, amped up with a lot of love, and drizzled with a little nostalgia.

What you’ll need…

For the Salad:
1 bunch kale (+ Coarse Sea Salt)
1 Cup cooked quinoa
1 Small red onion
⅓ Cup Each Dried Cranberries, Golden Raisins, and slivered almonds
½ Cup Parmesan or Feta Cheese

For the Dressing:
Juice of 1 Orange
Juice of 1 Lemon
½ Cup Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Honey
Salt and Pepper to taste

Get Cooking…

First and foremost, start cooking the quinoa according to package instructions, so it has ample time to cool. The last thing you want is to add hot quinoa to the crisp kale leaves because they will begin to wilt.

To begin the salad, rinse the kale and pat dry. Using a sharp knife, remove the rigid stem from the leaves. Chop the kale leaves into your desired bite size (I prefer about 1 inch squares). Place the chopped kale into a large bowl and sprinkle lightly with the coarse sea salt. With clean hands, massage the kale with the sea salt. Yes, you read that correctly – I’m telling you to massage your salad. Okay, I know I’ve said it before, but this salad is the best and it is the best because of this secret trick that is essential to making the kale taste so good. This trick softens the leaves and cuts the bitterness slightly. Massage the kale, just do it.

Next, finely dice the red onion and add to the salad bowl. Next to the salad bowl, add the dried cranberries, golden raisins, and slivered almonds. When the quinoa is properly cooled, add the quinoa.

In a smaller, separate bowl prepare the dressing by simply combining dressing ingredients and stirring vigorously. Promptly drizzle the dressing over the salad, and toss to evenly coat all elements.

I always reserve the cheese until right before I serve the salad. Because I normally prepare this salad as a lunch for the week, I don’t like to add the cheese right away.

This recipe makes about 5-6 large salads, or could serve 8-10 as a side salad or appetizer.