Kale Salad

Raw kale salad, isn’t that an idea? The first time I had it was actually at work in our cafeteria’s salad bar. It was bathing in a sweetened sesame oil dressing, nothing fancy, and yet, it was delicious! So I decided I’d give making my own version a shot.

If you don’t already know this, kale is very good for you – read about it here. I prefer to make it raw, it keeps some of the minerals out of the water and in the vegetable. It’s one of the many miracle foods if you ask me.

Ingredients:
One head of kale
10 Cherry/grape tomatoes (cleaned)
1-2 Ripe avocados diced up (start with one and see how you feel about adding more)
2 Tbsp red onion
5-7 Leaves basil chopped up

Salad dressing:
2 Tbsp Olive oil
2 Tbsp Rice wine vinegar
Juice of half a lemon
Salt and pepper

This is a dinner side salad for 4 people.
If you want to avoid rubbery/hard kale then I’d suggest making this salad about 30 min before you serve it. You can choose to refrigerate it or leave it out. If you make it ahead it will get wilty, but that’s sort of the point. You don’t want it to be too hard and chewy, so a little wilty is a good alternative.

1. Thoroughly clean the kale and break it into reasonable bite size pieces.
2. Mix together the salad dressing ingredients, taste it – if you like it more or less tangy make some additions. Remember, your taste buds are the only measurement you need.
3. Place you kale in a salad bowl, add your diced avocado, cherry tomatoes, and red onion.
4. Now you can either use your hands or 2 spatulas, but your goal is to kneed the avocado into the kale. It should become like a paste around the leaves. If you want to leave some as cubes it provides for a nice texture and flavor. Like I said earlier, start with one avocado, and when it’s all together, taste it and decide if you want more. In my world, there’s no such thing as too much avocado.
5. Add your basil, and dressing. Taste. Add more dressing, avocado, and salt and pepper until you’re happy with the flavor.

There’s no right or wrong way to make a salad, I have fun adding whatever is in my pantry or fridge:

ingredients you could sub in are toasted pine nuts, fresh raw corn, currant berries or cranberries, bacon, Parmesan cheese, etc…there’s no right or wrong. My only suggestion is if you go with fruit I’d drop the tomatoes.