Crunchy Juicy Kale Salad
A flavor bomb, with chickpeas, beets, goat cheese, and pepitas
I’m writing to you today very early in the morning from the left coast. I’m working on a cookbook shoot, and taking advantage of the morning hours while I’m still on NY time to get other work done!
As you probably know, I love kale salad, and apparently lots of you do too. Some of you have told me that this kale salad from the archives is your favorite Susanality recipe so far, so I figured it was time for a new one. This salad has grated raw beets — one of my favorite things to add to salads — which adds sweetness and juiciness and crunch. I often buy the already trimmed beets for this purpose, which are usually in the supermarket right next to the bunched beets with their tops still on. I find them to be fresh and good, and they keep forever. They tend to be bigger than the bunched ones, which makes for less work when peeling and grating. For this recipe, I use my food processor to grate the beets since I’ve already dirtied it to slice the kale. Doing both of these jobs with the machine takes just seconds instead of much, much longer (though doing it by hand is an option too!).
As always, my goal with a salad is to have an explosion of flavors and textures that makes you want to eat more and more of it. Lately I’ve been really concentrating on getting lots of protein into every meal, so that was the idea behind this particular version, which has chickpeas, pumpkin seeds, and goat cheese. You could add more protein to top this salad for lunch or dinner, but it’s quite filling on its own. Leftovers are good too. We usually eat them right out of the container. And of course, you can swap the goat cheese for feta or leave it out if you’re vegan or dairy-free.
I added a spoonful of nut butter to this dressing because I had an almost-empty jar of cashew butter in the fridge. I warmed up the whole jar in the microwave to liquefy the nut butter then made the dressing right in the jar, just as I love to do with the end of a jar of mustard. If you don’t use it all, you can store it in the jar for your next salad.
Speaking of dressing, always add the dressing slowly when making a kale salad — or any salad, really — to avoid overdressing it. It’s difficult to prescribe exactly how much dressing to use, especially since the size of a bunch of kale can vary so much. Add some, toss it in, taste it, and add more if needed. Pass the extra on the side for dressing lovers.
Kale is one of those “anytime vegetables” that we can find in the supermarket all year, but it’s growing abundantly both in the northeast and in California, so make this salad now!
Salad Season
I tend to crave more and more raw vegetables as the weather warms. If you’re like me, here are salads from the archives you can enjoy in the coming weeks.
Radicchio + Beet + Fennel Salad
Refreshing, crunchy, and tangy — this is one of my go-to combinations when I’m craving a salad but not necessarily a bowl of leafy greens.
Couscous Salad with Halloumi
With cannellini beans, pearl couscous, and grilled halloumi, this is a very filling meal-in-itself salad to make all spring and summer long.
Kale and Apple Salad
And here’s the fan-favorite salad I mentioned above! You can swap the apples out for pears, strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, or any other fresh fruit you’d like, depending on the season.
Crunchy Juicy Kale Salad
Serves 4
If you happen to have a bottle of pomegranate molasses hanging out in your fridge, add a teaspoon of it to the dressing to help balance the flavors.