Maple Walnut Kale Salad
This is my favourite kale salad. The apple and maple syrup give it a warm, cosy winter holiday vibe, so it’s great for family gatherings.
Serves roughly 6 adults (makes a large bowl of salad)
Ingredients
- 2 large bunches of curly green kale
- 2/3 cup walnuts
- 1/4c butter+2 tbsp
- 1/4c maple syrup or brown sugar (+ 1 tbsp brown sugar if using)
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins
- 2 empire apples, chopped (or another type of apple with a firmer, drier texture)
- sunflower seeds (optional)
- plain feta cheese (optional)
- Strip the kale leaves from the stems. Discard the stems, and place the leaves in a large salad bowl.
- In a small sauce pan over low heat, melt all of the butter.
- Drizzle about 1 tbsp of melted butter over the kale. Let it cool just enough to use your hands to massage the melted butter into the kale leaves. Use more melted butter as needed to get the kale to a tender, soft texture- but don’t use so much butter that there is a puddle in the bottom of the bowl. You’ll notice your volume of kale will look a lot smaller after this step!
- If you are using brown sugar instead of maple syrup, sprinkle 1 tbsp of brown sugar over the kale, then toss the kale to mix it in.
- Add the brown sugar or maple syrup to the saucepan with the remaining melted butter. Heat for about 1 minute over low heat, stirring constantly.
- Add the walnuts to the maple syrup/sugar and butter. Stir until they are well coated. Heat for about 1 more minute (low heat). Keep stirring so that the walnuts don’t all stick together. Remove from heat.
- Layer the walnuts, apples, and cranberries/raisins on top of the bed of kale. Finish with sunflower seeds and/or feta cheese if using.
- Top salad with a drizzle of maple syrup (Unless you are using brown sugar- then see step 3)
- Toss just before serving. Enjoy!
-Kendra