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This 5-ingredient kale salad recipe solely takes a couple of minutes to make and goes properly with absolutely anything!

The kale salad I’ve made 1,000,000 instances. ♡

Should you’re on the lookout for a scrumptious kale salad recipe to maintain in your again pocket, this easy components gained’t allow you to down! It’s simple to whip up in a couple of minutes with any type of recent kale, lemon, olive oil, Parmesan and your selection of nuts. It’s wealthy in vitamins, filled with nutritional vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, and antioxidants. It’s simple to customise with no matter add-ins you would possibly like to incorporate. And it’s a kind of salads that magically appears to go together with every thing.

I’ve been making this one for over a decade now, and even the kale skeptics in my life have all the time loved it. So in case you’re on the lookout for a fast and wholesome inexperienced salad to go together with dinner tonight, seize some kale and it may be able to get pleasure from in minutes.

Let’s make some salad!

Straightforward Kale Salad Components

Listed below are a couple of fast notes concerning the kale salad substances you’ll need to make this recipe:

• Kale: I sometimes use both curly kale, lacinato (“dinosaur”) kale, or Pink Russian kale — all of which must be massaged (see under) to melt earlier than tossing with the opposite substances. However you could possibly additionally use a bag of child kale, which might not must be massaged earlier than serving.
• Parmesan: The salty, umami taste of Parmesan works so properly in kale salads. I extremely advocate buying a block of Parmigiano-Reggiano and freshly-grating it simply earlier than serving for essentially the most strong, recent taste.
• Lemon juice: Freshly-squeezed lemon juice mixes with olive oil to kind a easy dressing and provides the proper pop of zippy, citrusy taste to the salad. Should you don’t have an superior citrus juicer, I’m obsessive about this one.
• Olive oil: With so few substances right here, I like to recommend utilizing a good-quality further virgin olive oil to therapeutic massage the kale and gown the salad.
• Salt and pepper: Don’t overlook to season the salad! A beneficiant pinch of advantageous sea salt and some twists of freshly-ground black pepper are important components of the “dressing” that season the salad.
• Nuts: I really like including toasted almonds (sliced or slivered) to this salad for a bit of additional crunch and protein, however be at liberty so as to add in no matter different nuts or seeds you like greatest.

How To Therapeutic massage Kale

Through the years, I’ve discovered that so many people who find themselves averse to kale salads miss the important step of massaging and softening the kale earlier than including it to the salad.

To melt kale, merely take away the robust kale stems, chop the kale leaves as desired, drizzle the kale with olive oil, then use your palms to therapeutic massage the oil into the kale leaves for about 1 minute till they soften and darken. This massaging course of helps to interrupt down the cellulose construction of the kale, softening its robust texture and decreasing the bitterness of its taste. It’s a easy step that makes an enormous distinction within the high quality of your salad, so don’t skip it!

Kale Salad Variations

Whereas this base kale salad recipe is tremendous easy, there are all kinds of scrumptious substances that you would be able to add or sub in as properly. For instance, be at liberty to…

• Add a protein: Cooked hen, steak, pork, shrimp, salmon, or tofu would all be scrumptious additions to this salad.
• Add recent veggies: Resembling avocado, cucumber, carrots, bell peppers, radishes, and/or crimson onion.
• Add recent or dried fruit: Resembling recent apples, berries, grapefruit, grapes. Or dried cranberries or apricots.
• Add jarred veggies: Resembling sun-dried tomato, roasted crimson peppers, or artichoke hearts.
• Add beans: Resembling chickpeas or white beans.
• Add croutons: Do-it-yourself or store-bought.
• Use a special cheese: In lieu of Parmesan, be at liberty so as to add crumbled blue cheese, feta cheese or goat cheese.
• Use completely different nuts/seeds: Resembling pepitas, pine nuts, walnuts, pecans or sunflower seeds.

Extra Kale Recipes

Searching for extra kale recipes to attempt? Listed below are a couple of of our favorites:

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