Harvest Kale Salad

With the cooler weather upon us (insert major feelings of sadness), most of us are thinking cozy – like a nice bowl of hot hearty soup, or some delicious stew slowly cooking in the oven.  But what we need more of, especially around this time of year is, you guessed it – salads. Like this yum-o Harvest Kale Salad.

And see, because it has the word harvest in it, it kinda makes you think of the fall? no? ok, moving on.

My love for salads comes as no surprise to anyone. I talk about it often on NDNC and I’ve even admitted to licking the bowl clean here. Embarrassing….

This salad I’m about to share with you takes the cake – not the best of sayings considering we’re talking about a salad but nevertheless – It’s light and tangy and perfect for summer anytime.

Yes, I had summer originally written because this salad was meant to be posted back in July :| But you know what’s good? The fact that I’ve made it umpteen times since then so this recipe will for sure delight the masses :D *fingers crossed*

Kale is in right now. It’s everywhere, and in many recipes, which is great because it’s super nutritious, and when prepared right, it can taste phenomenal.

When I first started with kale, I didn’t know how to prepare it. Being honest. I chopped however which way, usually chunky pieces, and I used to massage it with oil and vinegar and what have you because that’s how I was told to do it. The thing with that is it left me not really craving kale all that much since the leaves were tough and chewy. I tried them in tacos and baking them in the oven to make chips. Kids liked them; I didn’t think it was worth the effort.

Plus they almost always came out scorched!

But, want the secret to the best kale salad?

Finely chop the leaves! Yup. That’s it. No need to massage or soak or do anything else. When you finely chop kale, you get rid of the chewiness problem, a lesson learned when I made tabouleh over the summer. Since I always finely chop my parsley leaves to give a more pleasant eating experience, I tried the same idea using kale to make this salad. BINGO.

I may be the last human to figure out this technique but what I was taught was if one person is thinking about something, so are like 9 other people. Or is that when you have a genius idea you don’t want to share with the world because you’re worried someone will steal it…?

You’re going to LOVE this salad. It’s different, light, tangy, refreshing, has some fall element incorporated in it (hello, pumpkin seeds), and easy to make.

I added a bit of radiocchio in there. It’s a very bitter vegetable on its own, but somehow it works well in this salad.

To answer your question: I wanted to use said bitter vegetable because I’ve always wanted to try it and never knew when to use it. It was beside the kale at Farm Boy. End of story.

This satisfying and mega nutritious Harvest Kale Salad is free from:

• dairy

• egg

• tree nuts

• peanuts

• wheat/gluten

• mustard

• sesame

• soy

• animal products and by products

Try it and let me know what you think! Rate the recipe, leave me a comment, and let’s connect everywhere! Here on Insta and here on FB. And of course, always here :)

Happy salad making. xx