Enjoy This Kale Salad

Here at Gardenary, we're big fans of filling up on the good stuff. That means we eat a lot of kale. But kale is not just a superfood for your body—it’s a superstar for your garden too.

Kale is easy to grow, and it's a biennial, which means it's motivated to do well in your garden for up to two years. The best part about kale is the more you harvest from the leaves, the more the plant grows!

Sometimes, that means the garden throws way more kale at us than we know how to consume. And that’s why we need Joshua McFadden and his delicious kale salad recipe.

With just a few simple ingredients like bread crumbs, olive oil, garlic cloves, and of course, some Pecorino Romano cheese, you’ll be eating kale like it’s going out of style (even though it’s not going anywhere).  

Kale Salad Recipe

This kale salad recipe calls for toscano, or dinosaur, kale, a staple in many Italian dishes. The long, slender, dark-green leaves with their bluish hue and bumpy texture (kind of like reptile flesh, thus the dinosaur nickname) are easy to chop and, when eaten raw, like in this salad, have a slight nutty flavor.

Garden-fresh kale is really the star of this salad. Prioritize eating kale when you can harvest the leaves from the garden and enjoy them at their flavor and nutritional peak, or when you can buy them at your local farmers' market. If you can only find curly kale, that'll do. You'll still get lots of texture, flavor, and nutrients.

Ingredients

• 1 bunch of toscano, or dinosaur, kale; remove the center stalks
• 1/2 garlic clove, minced into a paste
• 1/4 cup of Pecorino Romano cheese, plus more for topping
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/8 tsp of red pepper flakes
• Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
• 1/4 cup of bread crumbs

Directions

1. Make the bread crumbs. Cut good-quality bread into 1/2 inch cubes with the crust on. Spread in an even layer on a baking sheet (or two, if needed). Bake the bread on the lowest oven setting, usually 250 degrees Fahrenheit, until the bread is dry, but not browned. This could take an hour or more. Let cool completely. Then process the bread into crumbs using a food processor. Pulse into crumbs the size of grape-nuts, avoiding powder-fine crumbs. Store in an air-tight container until needed.
2. Stack several kale leaves on top of one another and roll into a tight cylinder. Slice crosswise into 1/16 inch ribbons using a sharp knife. Rinse and dry kale leaves completely and place in a bowl.
3. Add garlic, 1/4 cup of Pecorino, a healthy glug of olive oil, lemon juice, red pepper flakes, 1/4 tsp of salt, and a few twists of the black pepper grinder to a small bowl. Whisk to combine.
4. Pour dressing over the kale and toss well to combine. Taste and adjust with more lemon and seasonings as needed. Let the salad sit until the kale softens, about 5 minutes. Top with bread crumbs and more cheese and drizzle with olive oil. Bonus: add a bit of color, like I did, by garnishing with some edible flowers.

Fill Up on the Good Stuff

So, now you can grow your kale and eat it too. (And please invite us over for dinner!)

Here’s to kale not tasting like cardboard and to Joshua McFadden for making eating locally and seasonally so very delicious.