This kale salad is really as basic as it looks, but we loved it. To be honest, we tried this recipe to make the croutons, haha. They were really good and are the star of the salad. If you’re looking for a lite, yet seemingly hearty salad, this may be for you.
Lilies and Loafers has affiliate relationships, so we may get a small share of revenue from your purchases. Items are sold by the retailer, not by Lilies and Loafers. If you’re looking for this recipe, you need to buy Cravings – Chrissy Teigen’s first cookbook. Yup, we went back to book one for this salad!
The only time we have kale is in our green smoothies. Even then, it’s often mixed in with spinach. There was a pumpkin seed kale salad offered to us many Thanksgivings ago, but we politely passed on it. Kale is something we have regularly stocked in the fridge, but it hasn’t been a green we sought out for a meal.
Making the kale salad
This recipe is inspired by a restaurant Chrissy loves in NYC, called Il Buco. They make a kale caesar salad.
Essentially this salad is a bed of kale, homemade croutons, topped with grated cheese and an olive oil-lemon dressing. To make this kale salad, you need a lot of commons things you may have in your cabinet: olive oil, garlic, kosher salt, pepper, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (not common in a cabinet), French or country loaf bread (not common in a cabinet), lemon juice, and kale (duh; may or may not be common in a fridge).
For the homemade croutons, the day-old french bread is tossed in olive oil and seasoned with kosher salt, pepper, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and garlic. These are really good and could be used in any salad. The dressing is really simple and made with olive oil, lemon juice, kosher salt, and pepper.
But the salad? It’s a little more complicated. You have to blanche the kale (to soften, but still keep the crunch). Maybe blanching is easy, but when I think of a salad, I think of something needing little effort. However, the cobb salad is pretty involved. That’s really it for the kale. Then you toss the kale in the dressing, then toss with the cheese, season with salt and pepper, and then toss with the croutons.
Will we have it again? Maybe. The croutons? Definitely.
