Southwestern-Flavored Kale Salad
Kale, corn, avocado, and tomatoes add up to a seriously delicious salad. With the optional beans, it’s a fantastic main dish salad. Without the added beans, it’s a great companion to tortilla specialties containing beans—burritos, enchiladas, and the like. Recipe adapted from Wild About Greens by Nava Atlas. Photos by Rachael Braun.
Southwestern-Flavored Kale Salad
Author: VegKitchen
Recipe type: Kale Salad
Cuisine: Vegan / Healthy
Prep time:
Total time:
Serves: 6 to 8
Kale, corn, avocado, and tomatoes add up to a seriously delicious salad. With the optional beans, it's a fantastic main dish salad.
Ingredients
- 8- to 10-ounce bunch curly or lacinato kale
- 2 cups raw or lightly cooked fresh corn kernels
- 1 medium firm, ripe avocado, peeled and diced
- 2 to 3 medium tomatoes, diced
- 1 medium red bell pepper, cut into short, narrow strips
- ½ cup green pimiento olives
- 1½ cups cooked or drained and rinsed black beans or pinto beans (see note)
- 2 to 3 scallions, green parts only, sliced
- 1 to 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, as desired
- Juice of 1 lime, more or less to taste
- ¼ cup minced fresh cilantro, optional
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Instructions
- Strip the kale leaves away from the stems (kitchen shears are good for this). Discard the stems, or slice them very thinly. Cut the kale leaves into narrow strips. Rinse well and pat dry.
- Transfer kale to a serving bowl. With a little olive oil rubbed into your palms, massage the kale for a minute or less, until it becomes bright green and softens a bit.
- Add the remaining ingredients and toss together gently (use salt sparingly, if at all). Let the salad stand for 10 to 15 minutes if time allows, to let the flavors blend, then serve.
Note: Omit beans if serving this with a bean dish.
Nutrition Information:
Per serving (without beans): 134 calories; 9 g fat; 13 g carbs; 4.4 g fiber; 5 g protein;
235 mgs sodium
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- Here are more recipes for hardy greens.
- Explore more of VegKitchen’s super savory salads.
Since there is no cooking involved, I suggest using a heart-healthy oil, such as unfiltered flax or hemp seed oil instead of olive oil. When consumed daily in small quantities, these seed oils provide the body with a rich source of Omega 3 fatty acids, which has been observed to improve cardiovascular health.
No need to massage the kale. The salt and other dressing ingredients will soften it.
If the kale is already tender, like from the garden, or for baby kale, that’s true. But for any other, I think massaging makes all the difference in the world for the mouth feel.
For those that don’t use oil, you can do the massaging with avocado, tahini or nut butter. Works just fine. I use it in my kale salad.
Massaging does make a difference and you get to add some love to your salad while giving your greens that massage.
Thanks for the great recipe Nava.
Hi Jill! Yes, that’s exactly right. Since this salad uses avocado, you can just mash a little up, rub it on your palms, and then massage as you would with oil. Kale can be massaged with any dressing you happen to be using, and a little goes a long way.
I would love it if you could please make it possible to put these amazing recipes on our Pinterest boards.
Hi Susan — there are sharing tools right under the titles of the recipes, plus if you mouse over individual photos, you should see the Pinterest symbol pop up. Is it not showing up for you?
Looks awesome – will make this this weekend
Is there any reason one could not use cucumbers in this recipe?
No reason whatever! Alter as you’d like.
Going to give this recipe a try. Never used Kale before.
I hope you like it! Massaging raw kale really does make a big difference.
I made this recipe for a BBQ we had last night. I used organic Tuscan kale and ‘massaged’ it with some olive oil as you said and it made all the difference. Also, the kale itself had a slight bitter aftertaste, but after the dish was put together, I let it sit in the fridge, and somehow it took away the bitterness. Maybe it was the lime. Anyway, great recipe!