Recipes : Kale and Quinoa Salad featuring the Kale Massage

There is something you should know about me, I don’t eat vegetables! As a kid, my Mom would try to feed them to me and I spit them out. I never took a liking to them as I grew older. My palate has changed over the years which is a good thing. I was a mac and cheese kid all the way. When my Mom would cook I preferred to have mac and cheese over just about anything she put on the table. She would give me the option if I wasn’t going to eat her dinner I could make my own mac and cheese. I even asked to have it on Thanksgiving! My Dad claims he is allergic to anything green so you can guess where I got it from!

Last month I chose Bonjour Kale as the book club selection. My first thought (sorry Kristen) was I was about to read a book about vegetables and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that… But for those of you that read it’s so much more than that. Kristen got me thinking about kale and how I needed to give it another try. Throughout the book Kristen shares recipes using kale. Introducing the Kale massage was a game changer as I had no idea that would change the taste and consistency of the vegetable. 

For those of you who don’t know what the Kale Massage is, it’s a way to soften the leaves a bit and make it much easier to chew and digest. Kristen shared these images with me in English and in French breaking down the kale massage. 

Last October I was in Paris and my friends invited me over for baguette, cheese, and wine. If you didn’t know this may be my favorite meal so of course, I said yes! When I arrived my friend’s husband had laid out quinoa and was making a salad. I am not sure how my face looked but I was trying to hide my disappointment of trading cheese and baguette for quinoa. My friend arrived late from work and was carrying the cheese so my face regained a bit of color. Thomas created a quinoa salad bowl with avocado, grapes, lettuce, nuts, and a vinaigrette dressing. I didn’t expect to like it at all and well the truth is I haven’t stopped thinking about how good this was! I prefer the quinoa that they used from Paris. I happen to think cooking it at home smells like cooked broccoli.  

When I was creating a kale salad to introduce the kale massage for the blog I immediately thought of this salad recipe but swapped out lettuce for kale. 

The ingredients:

kale

avocado

grapes/ I would even prefer cranberries or raisins

nuts (these are from trader joes the sweet and spicy ones) 

quinoa

lemon

olive oil

salt/pepper

Directions:

Rinse off the kale and break into pieces. Follow the instructions for the kale massage. I put about half a lemon and olive oil with salt in a large bowl. I massage for about two minutes. This is a game changer. Trust me! 

You can mix in the rest of the ingredients how you like them. The dressing from the kale should hold enough flavor for the bowl. I really like lemon so I would probably squeeze an additional wedge over everything. 

If you have made a recipe with Kale from Bonjour Kale or were inspired by the book I would love to hear from you! Please comment below or send me an email at [email protected]

The Kale Massage directions in French below