Best Kale Salad Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How to 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.

Curly Kale Is the Best Type of Kale for Salads

You'll probably recognize curly kale from the grocery store produce section. Curly kales, as the name suggests, have frilly-edged leaves and long stems.

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.

Much like in onions and garlic, kale's bitterness is only formed when the vegetable is sliced, chopped, massaged, or chewed. When cells in a leaf of kale are intact, an enzyme called myrosinase and sulfur-containing compound glucosinolate are separated from one another.

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.

Blanch Them

Blanching your greens is key to getting that bitterness level down. Because glucosinolates are water-soluble compounds, a lot of them are leached out into the water, allowing for a less bitter green.

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.

Red (or Red Russian) Kale

— often has red-hued stems. The leaves are flatter than those of curly kale (resembling arugula leaves) and can be green or gray-green in color. Red kale is often considered the sweetest kale, which makes it perfect for eating raw.

Use your hands to toss the greens, massaging/rubbing the vinaigrette into the kale a bit as you toss. Taste and correct the seasoning with salt and pepper. Let the salad sit for at least 10 minutes before serving. Even better—if time allows, cover the salad, and let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.

Does lemon juice soften kale? ›

By massaging it for as little as 2-3 minutes with a little oil and/or lemon juice, it becomes more tender, making it easier to chew and digest. The other reason is to infuse the kale with more flavor before the dressing is added.

In addition to massaging kale, you can reduce its bitter flavor by pairing it with acidic and sweet ingredients, such as citrus juices or vinegars in a dressing and fruits in a salad.

Acids like citrus juice and vinegar break down the cellulose in kale in the same way that massaging it does. That means that if you aren't serving your salad immediately after dressing it, you shouldn't massage it. Just let it hang out in a bowl with the dressing.

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.

*Pomegranate juice really makes this recipe and seems to hide the kale best.

Kale is fibrous and can be difficult to munch compared to other greens like romaine lettuce or spinach. The rubbing, kneading motion helps to tenderize the veg and make it easier to chew and digest. Try this for raw kale you are going to be serving or eating right away.