Learn how to make a quick and easy, balanced, delicious, and nutritious kale salad for the whole family. And you won’t need to massage the kale!
How to Make a Balanced Kale Salad Recipe
I simply love throwing together huge and nutritious salad bowls that are not a mere side dish but a balanced main meal. Besides, it’s super easy and ideal for batch cooking as well.
The Ingredients
Fresh Kale
The first and obvious ingredient is fresh kale. Now, you can use any kind of kale you have at hand – curly kale, premier kale, walking stick kale, Siberian kale, red Russian kale, redbor kale, lacinato kale etc. My favourite varieties are curly kale and lacinato kale.
Kale started as a ‘forgotten’ vegetable, but it has now become quite a darling vegetable in the entire culinary world. The main reasons for that are its magical health benefits and its incredible nutritional profile.
This dark, leafy green vegetable is a nutrition-powerhouse and is packed essential minerals and vitamins like calcium, iron, protein, magnesium, fibre, and vitamins A, C, and K. Find out more on kale’s super amazing health benefits from this article!
Types of Kale
Curly kale is the most common and recognizable type of kale. It is best characterized by its crinkly leaves. It is also the most found kale variety in grocery stores and at restaurants. Curly kale is known for its pale to deep green colour and those large, tight-ruffled leaves with frilly edges and long stems.
After curly kale, lacinato kale is probably the second most popular kale variety that you are likely to find in the vegetable section of most grocery stores. You might know it by several other names, including Tuscan kale and dinosaur kale.
Important not! Since kale is in the Dirty Dozen 2021 list by Environmental Working Group, I always recommend buying it organic.
Raw Cabbage
I almost always include raw cabbage, red or white, whenever I prepare a salad bowl. Red cabbage is obviously more nutritious but sometimes it’s nice to have variety. That being said, you’re free to choose any type of cabbage you prefer or have at hand.
Mushrooms
As per The Daily Dozen everyone should try to eat at least one button mushroom a day. Since I absolutely adore mushrooms, this is not a rule that’s hard to follow. Did you know that it’s not recommended to eat raw mushrooms? It’s because they contain the toxin called agaritine that can be carcinogenic. As it turns out, the most efficient way to cook mushrooms to get rid of this toxin is microwaving them at 1000W for a minute.
Boiled Potatoes
Another favourite salad bowl ingredient of mine is cooked starchy vegetables. They add so much heartiness and satiety to any meal. And it’s no wonder because cooked and cooled potatoes are a great source of resistant starch. The latter directly feeds our good gut bacteria. Other good options include sweet potatoes, winter squashes and parsnips.
Boiled Whole Grain Pasta
A good salad bowl should always include grains. I chose whole wheat pasta for this kale salad. I only recently discovered that whole wheat is an excellent source of selenium – 100 grams of dry pasta is enough to cover the RDA of selenium.
In case you are gluten intolerant, feel free to choose any gluten-free whole grain pasta like sorghum, buckwheat, teff, quinoa, or rice. Legume-based pastas would also be a great option.
Legumes
I chose two types of legumes to be included in this kale salad recipe. First, edamame beans that are so easy and quick to prepare. Moreover, they are a super low glycemic option as well. Secondly, black beans that might be my other favourite legume variety. I especially like brownies made of black beans.
Goji Berries
Finally, goji berries might seem as a totally random ingredient, but I’ll assure you that you’ll love them in this kale salad. Besides giving a nice touch of red colour, it’s also pleasurable to bite into those sweet berries every now and then. It’s also noteworthy that goji berries are an excellent source of vitamin A.
Salad Dressing
The salad dressing you choose, is totally up to you. Here are a few options that will go well with this kale salad:
Chickpea-Tahini Salad Dressing
Miso-Tahini and Miso-Cashew Salad Dressing
White Bean Salad Dressing
The Process
Sautéing the Kale
Start by washing the kale thoroughly and separating the stems and leaves. Then, chop the stems into smaller pieces and place them into a saucepan or a small pot with a bit of water (enough to almost cover them). Cover with lid. When the water stars to boil, set your timer to 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, chop the kale leaves into thin shreds. When there’s 3 minutes left on the timer, let the kale leave join the stems in the pot and sauté covered until the time is up. Transfer the kale into a large mixing bowl.
Boiling Pasta
Well, to boil the pasta, simply follow the instructions on the package. Always cook your pasta al dente because I’m sure you don’t want to see mushy pasta in your kale salad.
Boiling Potatoes
I suggest you boil the potatoes the previous day and keep them refrigerated to allow the resistant starches to form. Since most of the potatoes’ nutrients are in and under their skin, buy them organic and boil with skin on.
Preparing the Legumes
Next, if you have frozen edamame beans, simply boil them for a few minutes and drain. As for the black beans, to save time, buy a canned version with no additives. Then, rinse and drain them thoroughly.
Soaking Goji Berries
This is the step you can also skip but I prefer to soak my goji berries. The reason is that dry berries would stick to my teeth which is not very comfortable. For soaking, place the berries into a small bowl and pour hot water overt hem. It’ll take about 15 minutes. Cold water is also an option, but it will take a lot more time for the berries to soak it in.
Mixing the Kale Salad
Once you have prepared all the ingredients, it’s simply down to pouring on a salad dressing and mixing it all together in a large bowl.
Watch how I make this lovely kale salad in the below video:
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How to Make a Balanced Kale Salad Recipe
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Learn how to make a quick and easy, balanced, delicious, and nutritious kale salad for the whole family. And you won’t need to massage the kale!
Ingredients
- 240g (8.5oz) raw kale (stems and leaves)
- 100g (3.5oz) white cabbage
- 2 button mushrooms
- 4 medium potatoes
- 100g (3.5oz) whole grain pasta, dry weight
- 280g (9.9oz) edamame beans
- 240g (8.5oz) black beans
- 2 tbsps. goji berries
Miso-Cashew Dressing (the recipe is written down in the video description)
Instructions
- Start by washing the kale thoroughly and separating the stems and leaves. Then, chop the stems into smaller pieces and place them into a saucepan or a small pot with a bit of water (enough to almost cover them). Cover with lid. When the water stars to boil, set your timer to 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, chop the kale leaves into thin shreds. When there’s 3 minutes left on the timer, let the kale leave join the stems in the pot and sauté covered until the time is up. Transfer the kale into a large mixing bowl.
- Put goji berries to soak in hot water. Once soft, discard the water or use it in the salad dressing.
- Next, boil pasta according to the instructions on the package.
- I recommend boiling the potatoes the previous day and keep them refrigerated to allow the resistant starches to form.
- Next, if you have frozen edamame beans, simply boil them for a few minutes and drain.
- Then, rinse and drain your black beans thoroughly.
- The most effective way to destroy the toxin agaritine in mushrooms is to microwave them at 1000W for a minute. If you don’t have microwave oven, slice them up and sauté for 5 minutes.
- Prepare any preferred salad dressing. I used my miso-cashew dressing in this recipe (I used the whole recipe).
- Finally, in a large bowl combine all the ingredients well.
Notes
Storage: store in a covered bowl in the fridge for up to 3 days.
The nutritional info below includes miso-cashew dressing.
- Category: Salad
Nutrition
- Serving Size: ¼ of the recipe
- Calories: 575 kcal
- Sugar: 9.9g
- Sodium: 454.5mg
- Fat: 16.5g
- Saturated Fat: 2.5g
- Carbohydrates: 68.2g
- Fiber: 19g
- Protein: 27.8g
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