Winter Kale Salad Recipe Will Make You Believe In Kale Again

Swirled

Salad isn’t exactly a dish you crave in the winter, but we bet you’ll go nuts over this one. Our winter kale salad incorporates all the flavors you want in a meal: sweet, salty, savory, nutty and acidic, thanks to ingredients like dried cranberries, slivered almonds, a squeeze of lemon juice and that salty bite from fresh parmesan cheese. We can’t guarantee you’ll want to ditch your holiday feast for it, but for all the days in between, you’ll be craving this salad non-stop, and you’ll definitely love kale after you try this recipe. That we can promise.

Winter Kale Salad

Swirled

Ingredients

1 large bunch of kale, washed with stems removed (In case you’re not familiar, kale looks like a huge leaf — you want the spine of that leaf to be cut out) and roughly chopped or hand-torn into smaller pieces
3 tablespoons of olive oil, divided
Juice from half a lemon
1/2 cup of slivered almonds
1/2 cup of dried cranberries
1 apple (we like Honeycrisp) sliced into matchsticks (thin, long pieces)
1/4 cup of parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

In a large bowl, add the kale, two tablespoons of olive oil and lemon juice, and start massaging the greens. Yep, you read that right. Get your hands into that kale and massage it the way you would knead a ball of dough. Still lost? Scrunch it with your fingers for about three to five minutes. You might notice the kale becoming a bit softer without getting mushy. Your goal in massaging the kale is to literally massage out the bitterness that probably makes you not love the green so much. Basically, it’s your go-to way to eat kale.

Once the kale is massaged for three to five minutes, add the slivered almonds, dried cranberries, apple and parmesan. Toss, then immediately before serving, mix together your last tablespoon of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and pour it on top. Enjoy!

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