hearty fall harvest salad
This colorful salad incorporates lots of textures and flavors, all part of a bountiful fall harvest here in central Texas! Massaging the kale with olive oil before building your salad makes the robust leaves more tender and easier to digest, as well as reducing any bitter flavor the leaves may naturally have.
Feel free to play with the ingredients - we love cardinal basil to add some beautiful color and extra herby flavor; sub in another green if you don't have kale; adding creamy cheese or crunchy nuts on top brings yet another texture to the mix and can only improve your salad. The vinaigrette for this salad is simple, to let the flavorful fresh ingredients and herbs shine!
Kale
Fresh herbs (basil, dill, cilantro, parsley, etc...)
Beets
Radishes
Peppers (sweet or hot, up to you)
Any other veggies you have on hand!
Optional toppings - cheese, croutons, nuts, seeds, pickled onions, etc...
Olive Oil
Vinegar or Lemon Juice
Honey
Salt or other seasoning blend (medi mix, boro salt, and papi spice all work great!)
- Peel and cook beets as desired (steam, bake, pressure cook until fork tender).
- Prepare the vinaigrette: combine 1/4 c olive oil, 1 Tbsp vinegar OR 2 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp honey, and 1/2 tsp salt (or 3/4 tsp flavor medi seasoning blend of your choice). Mix well to dissolve the honey. The vinaigrette will separate pretty quickly - you didn't do anything wrong! Just re-mix right before you use.
- Wash and prepare all vegetables. Dice beets, slice radishes and peppers, de-stem herbs, etc... For the kale, remove the tough center ribs (freeze these to use in stock!) and chop the leaves into desired salad size.
- Put the kale in a bowl large enough to easily fit your whole salad. Drizzle with a little olive oil, then use your hands to massage the oil into the leaves. You will feel them start to get a bit more tender and supple after a couple minutes.
- Add the vegetables and herbs to the kale. Re-mix the vinaigrette, then pour some over the salad. Toss everything together to mix and coat with dressing. Add more vinaigrette as needed.
- Plate the salads, then add toppings, if using. Or just sprinkle with toppings and eat straight from the big bowl! We love a big bowl salad.
