Kay’s Kale Salad

Click here to view recipe.

Colorful Kale Salad

Colorful Kale Salad

You’ll have to wait until right before Thanksgiving in 2015 to get a full rundown of this year’s family weekend and excellent adventures.  Yet I cannot in all good conscience wait that long to share with you this wonderful, different and timely recipe that is a delicious accompaniment for your holiday dinners. And yes, it’s yet another Kale salad… BUT this one features beautiful, seasonal additions of pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and roasted squash.  And anything with white miso piques my interest.  Intrigued?  You should be.

This is a wonderful light salad that can sit, dressed, overnight if you wish. For me, this is key when feeding a huge crowd – it just makes the final meal less stressful.

My sister Kay made this singlehandedly and everybody loved the flavors.  The recipe came from a friend of hers via a restaurant… not really sure about the origin.  I switched out pecans for the pine nuts just because.

Kay’s Kale Salad

Feeds 6-8

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Ingredients for the salad
  • 1 large bunch lacinato (also called dinosaur) kale, stems removed and leaves cut into a fine chiffonade
  • 1 ½ cups roasted butternut squash (ours were cut into ½  inch cubes before roasting) or roasted beets cut the same size
  • ¾ cup dried cranberries (I use dried cherries as they are a tad less sweet)
  • ½ cup toasted chopped pecans
  • ¼ cup toasted pumpkin seeds
  • 1 avocado, cubed into ½ inch pieces
Ingredients for the dressing
  • ¼ cup room temperature white miso paste
  • ¼ cup honey or pure maple syrup
  • ¼ cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar
  • ⅓ cup grapeseed oil
  • 2 Tbsp fresh peeled and grated ginger (less if you are not a ginger fan)
Instructions

For the salad: in a large bowl combine all ingredients except the avocado and toss well.  Leave on the counter.

For the dressing: combine all ingredients except the grapeseed oil and ginger and whisk together.  Add in the ginger and then drizzle in the oil.  A hand blender works great for this dressing.  Store in a glass jar.  You can make this dressing up to 24 hours ahead which allows the ginger to mellow.

Up to a day before and at least  an  hour ahead of the meal, slowly add the dressing to the kale salad and toss to coat.  Sometimes it doesn’t take the full amount of dressing for this amount of kale.  Let the dressed salad  sit for a half hour to an hour or even overnight to allow the kale to soften. Right before serving, add the avocado cubes.

 

 

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