For Tuesday's "I tried something new," #foodrevolution, I made this kale salad that was so easy to make that it took more time to buy the ingredients than to make the dish itself. In fact, the dish was made even more simple because I could get most of the ingredients from the salad bar at Whole Foods, and not have to do much cutting which is grand in my book of lazy.
If you have not tasted kale yet, you should give it a whirl as the green is gaining popularity as a super food packed with nutrients. Here are some of the health benefits of kale. I like kale because it has a slight crunchiness to it. I've eaten kale many times before but I usually eat it plain or in soup like this chicken sausage, red lentil, potato, carrot and kale soup I made awhile back. This is the first time I've ever made it mixed with stuff in a salad.
You can make this kale dish either raw or slightly cook the kale. Raw kale is too bitter for me, so what I like to do is steam it for one minute, and not a minute more. With the one minute steam, the kale loses its bitterness but it's still slightly crispy. Cook the kale more than a minute and it starts to get wilty like chard.
Ingredients (serves 2)
- 2 cups of fresh kale cut into bite sized chunks
- 1/2 a small avocado cut into cube chunks
- 10 cherry tomatoes sliced in half
- 1 tbsp toasted walnut pieces
- 1 tbsp sliced red onion or more if you like onion
- 1/4 fresh lemon
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- garlic salt
Let's get cooking:
- Like I mentioned you can either use the kale raw or steam it for one minute. I prefer to steam to take away some of the bitterness. If you eat the kale raw, you'll get the most enzyme impact of this vegetable.
- Put the kale in a mixing bowl, pour in the olive oil, and squeeze the lemon juice all over the kale. Sprinkle a couple shakes of garlic salt and thoroughly mix all three ingredients.
- Toss in the cherry tomatoes, onion, avocado and toasted walnuts, and give it a nice mix all together. Add a little more garlic salt for taste.
You're done. Put in a nice dish and enjoy!
I loved this kale salad so much that after I made it and took pictures for this blog post, I tweeted about how I almost ate the whole thing. So yeah, very glad I tried something new!
