I tried this salad from Lillie Eats and Tells last week and it was mouthwateringly good (I love all her recipes).
We paired it with chicken from Lillie’s Greek marinated chicken skewers mixed in and boy howdy, THAT is a good meal.
(Of course, Lucy turned her nose up at that idea, but the rest of us couldn’t get enough.)
I am a sucker for kale salads at restaurants but I always figured that’s because they must be drenched in gobs of salad dressing.
So it surprised me that all you dress this one with is balsamic vinegar and a little kosher salt.
It still has so much flavor (I’m sure helped by the roasted veggies).
So I figured I better share it here.
How to make the best kale salad:
(Check it out with much better pictures over on Lillie’s blog HERE, but I want to have my own tweaked version here.)
There are no exact measurements, which may make you nervous at the onset, but I promise you can do it!
This is how what you put in:
KALE
trim off the tough stems and then chop up the leafy part as small as you can. Then, I had heard of this before but I haven’t tried it: with clean hands, massage those tiny leaves like nobody’s business. I guess this helps get rid of the bitterness that tends to come with kale. Drizzle a little balsamic vinegar over the kale, and sprinkle with kosher salt (you see, no measurements but you can do this!)
ROASTED VEGETABLES
I use broccoli, cauliflower and sweet potatoes (my favorite). I cut them up and put them on a sheet pan, drizzle with a little olive oil (again, just eyeball it), kosher salt, pepper, paprika and a little cumin, but really, you can season roasted veggies any way you want and they seem to work! Bake at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes. I bake a few trays of these to keep extras in the fridge for other salads during the week, I LOVE them!
APPLE
chopped up small
GOLDEN RAISINS
I get mine at Trader Joes, probably craisins would work as well.
PINENUTS
RED ONION
chopped up small
And that’s it! No dressing needed, makes my mouth water to think about all those flavors mixed together.
If you’d like to mix in some protein to make it more hearty, make Lillie’s Greek chicken or any other grilled chicken would be delicious with this.