Side Dish Time! Kale and Apple Salad with Miso Maple Dressing
Side Dish Time! Kale and Apple Salad with Miso Maple Dressing
A fresh and delicious side for your Thanksgiving feast
Welcome to issue #34 of Susanality, my free weekly newsletter. It’s the first week of November so, naturally, I’m sharing a dish perfect for your Thanksgiving menu. Look out for more holiday recipes in the coming weeks. Paying subscribers can expect bonus recipes, how-to videos, and styling ideas as well. If you’re not yet a subscriber, now is an excellent time to sign up!
It looks like most of us will have some semblance of Thanksgiving this year, which I am giving thanks for. Of all the holidays, this is my favorite. It celebrates all the things I love to do the most: cook for other people and connect with family and friends around the table. And after these last few years of pandemic living, this is really something to celebrate.
Last year I was determined to gather a small group safely for Thanksgiving, and was planning to cook most of it outdoors on my Traeger grill (which, by the way, does a great job at cooking turkey). I postponed the feast by a day because rain was predicted on Thanksgiving and the forecast for Friday was unseasonably mild and sunny. Outdoors on a nice day would be better than huddling under cover in the rain.
I was busy prepping for Friday’s feast when I got the call: Whoops. Someone I had worked with one-on-one at my house had tested positive for COVID. Even though we had been outdoors, I had no choice but to cancel the whole thing. I isolated in my bedroom for 10 days, which went faster than I thought it would thanks to bingeing Emily in Paris and The Undoing. Luckily, it had been a false alarm. But canceling Thanksgiving had been a major letdown.
This year we will be gathering with family, and I’m really looking forward to it. I haven’t figured out my menu yet, but a kale salad will definitely be included. It’s a staple of my Thanksgiving menu for several reasons. First of all, it can be prepped completely ahead of time and requires no oven time (everything on the table doesn’t have to be hot!). Second, I like something fresh and acidic to lighten up what can be a heavy meal. Third, everyone loves it! It always disappears!
I first published a recipe for a kale salad as a Thanksgiving side dish back in 2011 as part of a story for Bon Appétit magazine. That recipe—which also included shaved Brussels sprouts—remains one of the most popular recipes on Epicurious to this day. It has been so popular, in fact, that a few years later they asked me to create three new versions of that salad (which can be found here, here, and here).
In my latest book, I provide more riffs on the classic kale salad. And here, for my Susanality subscribers, I’m offering you yet another! It may be my favorite version so far. This type of kale salad gets better as it sits, and is a great dish to bring if you’re a guest to someone else’s house. You will be appreciated for not requiring last-minute oven space!
Join me in adding this delicious kale salad to your holiday table. And again, keep an eye out for more Thanksgiving recipes coming to your inbox in the coming weeks.
What’s up next for my paying subscribers
This Sunday I will be sharing a how-to video starring perhaps my favorite kitchen gadget of all: the mandoline.
A mandoline can save you time and is one of my go-to tools when I’m food styling for magazines, movies, or my own Thanksgiving table. In the video, I share the exact mandoline I recommend, how to use it safely and efficiently, and ways to incorporate it into your day-to-day cooking. I honestly use mine almost every day.
For those of you who are new here, hi and thank you for subscribing! In addition to these weekly posts, I send two extra newsletters each month to my paying subscribers. These include bonus recipes (some of my very favorite dishes!), how-to videos (that are like mini cooking classes), deep dives into technique (like how to make pie dough), Q&As, and more. You can subscribe for $5 per month (basically the price of one latte!) or $50 per year. Whether you’re a free or a paying subscriber, all my past newsletters live permanently here. If you like this and other Susanality recipes, you can find more of my work on my site, in my latest cookbook, Open Kitchen, or on Instagram. I’m so glad you are here!
Kale and Apple Salad with Miso Maple Dressing
(See end of post for a printable version)
Serves 6 to 8
For the dressing:
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 small clove garlic, grated on a microplane, or 1 teaspoon roasted garlic
1 tablespoon tahini
2 teaspoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon white miso
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
For the garnish:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
¼ cup pepitas
For the salad:
2 large bunches Tuscan kale (about 2 pounds total), center stems stripped out, and shredded (see below for tip)
½ medium head fennel, trimmed
1 medium apple
2 ounces aged gouda, shaved with a vegetable peeler or mandoline
Mix the lemon juice, garlic, tahini, maple syrup, miso, salt, and pepper in a small bowl, using a fork to combine thoroughly. Slowly drizzle in the oil, using the fork to incorporate it, and set aside.
Add the vegetable oil to a small skillet and heat over medium heat. Add the pepitas and cook until they sizzle and pop and turn slightly brown (but don’t overcook!), about 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, scoop them out onto a paper towel-lined plate. Sprinkle with kosher salt.
Using a mandoline if you have one, shave the fennel as thinly as possible (or cut very thinly with a knife). Cut the apple into quarters, cut out the core and seeds, and shave thinly on the mandoline, or again just using a knife.
Place the shredded kale in a large serving bowl. Pour most of the dressing over top of the kale, and, using your hands, lightly massage the kale leaves to both soften them and coat them evenly in the dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste. If it needs more dressing, add it. Toss some of the fennel and apples into the salad, saving some for the top. Top with the cheese, the toasted pepitas, and the apple and fennel slices you saved for garnish.
A few tips
Some notes on kale: If you can’t find Tuscan kale (which is also known as lacinato or dinosaur kale), curly kale will work. I used to take the time to carefully roll up kale leaves like a cigar and slice them thinly into fine ribbons, but then I realized that my food processor, when fitted with the slicing blade, can shred the kale in just seconds! So that’s what I usually do. If you don’t have a food processor, get into the zen of slicing the kale by hand.
If you’re missing a dressing ingredient: If you are out of one of the dressing ingredients—like the miso, tahini, or maple—you can easily improvise by adding some honey mustard or Dijon mustard instead. Add a little at a time, taste-testing until the flavors are balanced. If you are a mustard fan, you can even add a spoonful to the recipe as it’s currently written for added sharpness.
If you are prepping ahead: As I mentioned, this is a great dish for making ahead of time, even up to a day in advance. However, I would wait until just before meal time to shave or slice your apples so that they don’t turn brown. If you are taking this dish to a friend’s house, you could pre-slice the apples at home, store them separately in a sealed bag, and spritz them with some lemon juice to help prevent browning. Incorporate them into the rest of the salad just before meal time.
Have any questions? Leave them in the comments! I will get back to you ASAP.
Wow, this dressing!! It’s good enough to drink!