when life gives you kale…make salads, pesto, chips, stir frys!
| kale salad with toasted hazelnuts, soft gorgonzola and grapefruit balsamic |
Recipe type: hearty salad
Author:
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 8 mins
Total time: 28 mins
Serves: 4-6
the massaged kale combined with toasted nuts and flavorful cheese is a nice change from the usual lettuce salad
Ingredients
- 2 bunches kale (i use 2 different types – russian and tuscan)
- 1/3 cup toasted hazelnuts
- 1/3 cup crumbled soft gorgonzola (or strong flavored cheese of your choice)
- 2 tablespoons very thinly sliced red onion (soak in ice water for 10 min.)
- 1 tablespoon baker & olive hojiblanca EVOO or EVOO of your choice
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt (sometimes i use truffle salt for extra flavor)
- 2 teaspoons baker & olive grapefruit white balsamic or cara cara white balsamic (you’ll become addicted!)
- freshly ground blackpepper to taste
- 1 clove garlic very finely chopped or microplaned (optional) mixed in with oil and salt, if using
Instructions
- preheat oven to 350 degrees
- toast hazelnuts for 8 minutes or until fragrant, cool
- remove and discard tough center stalks of kale
- stack 3 or 4 kale leaves and chop roughly into bite-sized pieces until all kale is chopped
- add chopped kale to large salad bowl (i like to use a yellow bowl for contrast)
- drizzle with 1 tablespoon hojiblanca EVOO (or your choice)
- sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt
- massage kale with your hands and “don’t be timid” as russ parsons suggests
- the texture of the kale will be silky, color will become deeper and kale will reduce in volume as it breaks down
- pat dry the onion slices and add to kale
- just before serving: drizzle with baker & olive grapefruit or cara cara white balsamic
- sprinkle hazelnuts evenly over salad
- sprinkle gorgonzola (if using) evenly over salad
- optional additions at this point: sections of fresh cara cara orange, sections of grapefruit, cubes of avocado, or dried apricots.
- NOTE: my recipe is based loosely on russ parsons’ (food editor of the L.A. TIMES) recipe, but adapted for baker & olive products, the surplus of kale in our garden and our absolute love of hazelnuts and gorgonzola.
- enjoy!