Best Kale Salad Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you make kale taste better? ›

Massaging Kale – massaging kale with a little oil and/or lemon juice for just a few minutes makes it more tender and easier to chew. Plus, it adds an extra boost of flavor.

Kale Salad Recipe Ingredients

Any type of kale will work here. I especially like to use curly kale, but feel free to swap in Tuscan kale (aka lacinato kale) if you prefer. Extra-virgin olive oil and fresh lemon juice – You'll massage them into the raw kale to help the leaves soften.

Combine mayonnaise, yogurt, mustard, vinegar, honey, celery seeds, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Mix to blend. Put the kale, cabbage, carrots, and sunflower seeds in a large bowl and pour in the dressing. Toss to combine until everything is evenly coated, then serve or store in the fridge for 2 to 3 days.

Adding salt and squeezing lemon make a big difference by removing bitterness. Adding some spicy or sweet flavors may help tame the strong flavor of bitter kale.

The foods that help reduce bitterness are: Salt while cooking and/or while eating (like on bitter salad greens) Sweet or Spicy. Sour or Acids like lemon or vinegar.

Mix with sweets: combining kale with naturally sweet-tasting foods such as fruits, or sweet-tasting spices can help mask some of its bitterness. Add a touch of salt or spices: spicy and salty flavors can also tame some of kale's strong bitterness. Try cooking kale in vegetable broth with a touch of chili flakes.

Steaming is a better option than boiling because you don't lose as many nutrients with this cooking method, according to Gray. “You're not giving it heat treatment for very long, so it's closest to raw that you can get and you still are cooking it to some degree,” she said.

Taste-wise, kale can have bitter notes, so combining it with spicy, sweet or acidic elements, such as vinegar, lemon or red wine, can counteract and balance the mild bitterness. Salt is also an important ingredient when cooking with kale.

RELATED: Believe It Or Not, Kale Actually Lives Up To All Of Its Hype—Here's Why. Manganiello says you can eat kale every day, just don't overdo it. She recommends one to two servings maximum of kale per day, leaving room for other healthy foods that provide an assortment of nutrients.

But it is the extra-tender, milder-tasting leaves of the Brassica napus kales — the Russo-Siberian ones, mostly from Northern Europe and Northern Asia — that Mr. Still calls “the best of the best.” Red Russian and Siberian are the two best known to gardeners.

What is the cousin to kale? ›

Collard greens, kale's leafy cousin, can make delicious salads, too | CNN.

She spent the day sharing pieces of her life, including a few of her favorite meals. For lunch, she had what is now known as the Jennifer Aniston salad: bulgur wheat, cucumber, herbs, chickpeas, feta, red onion, and pistachios.

Add Sweet to Kale: Sweet foods go well with kale because they counter its rather bitter taste. Serve curly kale up as a salad with simple ingredients like a blood orange, mango and slivered almonds or apple, feta and toasted walnuts or cook kale up with caramelized onion.

In addition to buying sweeter varieties, the way you prepare kale can also impact its bitter qualities. Similar to how cooking collard greens can fix their bitter taste, blanching kale is one way to cut down on its more robust flavors.

Tuscan Kale

Tuscan kale goes by many names. Among them are dinosaur kale, cavolo nero, and black kale. This kale has longer spear-like leaves with a pebbled appearance and a dark, mottled green color. Its flavor is deep and earthy — it's less bitter than curly leafed, with an almost-nutty sweetness.