Toasted Lemony Kale Salad

About

Cold salads make great appetizers, but there’s something unpleasing about a cold salad sharing the plate with your hot entree. This Keto warm salad recipe can complement so many different types of dishes, and it takes less than 20 minutes to put together. First, you’ll hand-massage your kale until you have soft, tender greens that have been salted to remove any bitterness. Tons of lemon juice is added for a bright flavor. To make this salad warm, you’ll be toasting a handful of aromatic ingredients in olive oil. The warm olive oil holds the flavor of your toasted ingredients and lubricates all your kale for delicious bites. Crunchy pecans, chewy green olives, and a little spice from pepperoncini peppers complete the salad. You can make this Keto salad in large batches in store in your refrigerator for up to 1 week. Simply re-heat to serve.

Working With Kale

Kale is a highly nutritious vegetable. You know what they say: dark leafy greens have the most dense nutrition. The darky your leafy greens, the lower in carbohydrates they are too. This is why kale and other salad greens are so useful on the Keto diet (and any other diet, really). Kale isn’t tricky to work with, but there are many ways to prepare it. If you’re having trouble removing the stems from the leaves, microwave the kale between paper towels for just a few seconds. Slightly wilting them will make it easier to tear the kale. In this recipe, you’re massaging the kale with salt. Salt can extract the water from kale, which is why it becomes so tender. When you want to make a recipe such as this one, avoid boiling or steaming the kale. Save those techniques for when you’re adding kale to a hot dish.

Other Nuts You Can Use

Pecans are great for the Keto diet. Just 1 ounce of pecans has about 20 grams of fat and only about 4 grams of carbs! If you don’t have pecans at your disposal or you simply want to use a cheaper but, there are other Keto-friendly nuts you can choose from. Cashews have about 12 grams of fat for every 1 ounce. While they’re a little higher in carbs, they’re still Keto-friendly. Almonds have about 14 grams of fat and 6 grams of carbs. You have many options on the Keto diet!

Ingredients

3 oz kale
¼ each – juice from one lemon lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon olive or extra virgin olive oil
1 ½ oz pecans, raw
1 teaspoon, chopped garlic
¾ teaspoon, whole pieces sesame seeds
1 oz green olives
1 ¼ oz pepperoncini
½ oz scallions

Instructions

Start by removing the kale leaves from the stems. Discard the stems and chop the kale. The ingredient list provides the weight of kale that does NOT include the weight of the stems. Add the chopped kale to a large mixing bowl with lemon juice and salt. Use your hands to gently massage the kale. The salt will extract liquid from the kale and wilt it. Massage the kale for up to 5 minutes – until the leaves are tender to your liking.
Set the bowl of kale aside to rest. In a small pan or pot, combine the olive oil, chopped pecans, minced garlic, and sesame seeds. Heat the olive oil over low heat and let the ingredients begin to toast in the oil until their fragrant. When you can smell the pecans and seed the garlic and sesame seeds have started to turn golden, remove your pan from the heat. Leave the toasted ingredients aside momentarily.
Go back to the bowl of kale. Chop the olives, pepperoncini (remove any stems), and green onion. Add these ingredients to the kale. Slowly pour the warm olive oil and toasted ingredients over the kale salad. Fold the ingredients over in your mixing bowl until you have a consistent salad mixture and you see everything coated in the oil and spices. Serve warm with your main dish.