Ashley’s Kale and Apple Salad

This salad is a perennial favorite around here. Another flavorful and well-balanced recipe brought into our lives by our friend Ashley S. Thanks, Ashley!

Ingredients

  • 1 gallon of kale*
  • 1 tart apple (Granny Smith, for example)
  • 1/3 cup of dried cranberries
  • 1/3 cup of pecans
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 1 Tbsp honey
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
  • 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • *Yes, I know it’s odd to call for a gallon of kale. We usually keep shredding kale until we’ve filled up a 16-cup steel bowl. Hence, a gallon of kale.


    Preparation

    1) Remove the leaf stalks from your kale and chop or shred it into bite-sized pieces. I’m still on the fence about whether using a knife or just my fingers is faster.

    shredded kale


    2) Keep doing that until you’ve filled up your one-gallon bowl.


    3) Time to mix up your dressing. Put the salt, pepper, honey, mustard, and apple cider vinegar into a measuring cup or a prep. bowl.


    4) Here’s the one tricky bit to the recipe. What comes next is that you continuously whisk the dressing while very slowly pouring in the olive oil. This emulsifies the oil together with the rest of the dressing and will help prevent the dressing from separating. Hard to catch the action with a still image, but imagine the whisk working feverishly while I pour a thin line of olive oil.

    Notably, one can mix the dressing in a blender as an alternative to whisking by hand. If you’re trying to make a double or triple batch of the dressing, I recommend the blender.


    5) Cut your apple into matchsticks.


    6) Top the kale with the apple, cranberries, and pecans. Pour the dressing over everything. Next, you’ll need to mix the dressing throughout the salad. We prefer putting a lid over the bowl and shaking it.

    Once everything is coated in dressing, the salad is ready to serve. You can enjoy it immediately or let it sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to marinate. The kale will soften pleasantly with 2 – 24 hours of marination. Yum!

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