Chef AJ’s Hail To The Kale Salad

This popular recipe has been floating around the web for many years, but I really love it and felt the need to share it on my site. For those of you who find raw kale too bitter, this recipe will certainly make you into a kale lover. I promise!

Tonight I prepared Chef AJ’s reduced fat version of her Hail To The Kale Salad dressing, but you can watch her prepare the original dressing with dietician Julieanna Hever on the video at the end of this post.

You should have the following ingredients on hand to start (the coconut water is optional; plain water would be just fine). You should also have some chopped nuts or seeds to sprinkle on the salad just before serving. I sprinkled my salad with chopped almonds…

You must start by thoroughly rinsing 2 large heads of kale, ripping the leaves off the stems and setting aside in a large bowl.

Next, you must prepare the dressing by blending the following ingredients in a high powered blender until smooth and creamy :

-1/2 cup raw almond butter (unsweetened and unsalted)

-1 15-ounce can of cannellini beans (rinsed and drained)

-1 cup coconut water (or regular water)

-1/4 cup fresh lime juice and zest

-2 cloves of garlic

-fresh peeled ginger (about 1″ or 3/4 of an ounce)

-2 tablespoons low sodium Tamari soy sauce

-4 pitted dates (soaked in water if not soft)

-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes.

After you have blended the ingredients until smooth and creamy, pour 2 cups of the dressing over the kale. Tonight I was daydreaming and poured all of the dressing over the kale. The kale was drenched, but it was that much more delicious!

I bought this mezzaluna chopper today, to chop the kale and massage the dressing into the kale at the same time. Chef AJ’s mezzaluna (or Ulu blade) looks better than mine because it has one handle to grip at the top and a blade cover. You could also rip the kale into small pieces with your hands and just pour the dressing over the kale, but I wanted to follow the method used by Chef AJ in the video below.

This is what the kale salad looked like after I chopped it and smeared the dressing around with the mezzaluna. Let me remind you that it doesn’t look that pretty because I drenched it with all of the dressing I made which may have been too much. I can assure you that the salad was delicious anyway!

I placed some of the kale salad onto a nice plate and sprinkled it with ground almonds before serving. You could also top your finished salad with any type of nuts or seeds you may want.

This raw kale salad was amazing! I had it for dinner tonight and it really filled me up. Check out this great video of Chef AJ and dietician Julieanna Hever preparing the original version of this salad (1 cup of raw almond butter and no cannellini beans)…