Easy Kale Salad with Fresh Lemon Dressing

A fresh salad is a perfect lunch or side for almost any meal.

This easy kale salad is packed with fresh veggies and a super simple homemade lemon dressing, making it perfect as a healthy side dish!

Full of fresh ingredients with lots of flavor and crunch, this is definitely one of my very favorite kale salad recipes!

An Easy and Delicious Kale salad

A quick and easy kale salad recipe is perfect for warm weather but we honestly love it all year long!

• It’s fresh, delicious, and totally make-ahead so feel free to prep this bad boy the night before and pack it along in lunches the next day.
• Unlike tossed salad, we love how leftover kale salad (even with dressing) can be kept in the fridge.
• Packed with nutrition but more importantly, packed with flavor, this will anyone into a kale lover!
• The zesty homemade lemon dressing takes just minutes to prep and is so much better than store bought.

How to Prepare Kale

Kale actually makes the ideal prep-ahead salad and sandwich greenery because of its ability to hold up like a champ in the fridge! It stays fresh without wilting long past its leafy counterparts. Prepare kale quickly over the weekend and it will keep fresh and crisp all week long and keep it on hand as a salad green all week long.

1. Rinse the kale leaves in cold water.
2. Remove the thick stem by pulling off the leaves.
3. Spin dry in a salad spinner or shake dry and dab with a kitchen towel.
4. Massage the kale, more on that below.

How to Massage Kale

Say what?! Massage the kale? Massaging kale releases some of the bitterness and helps tenderize or soften it for salads. You can skip this step but honestly, I’d say give it a try at least once. It changes the texture and the flavor of the salad. I use curly kale but have also used dinosaur kale in this recipe.

1. Tear or chop the washed kale into bite-sized pieces, then sprinkle with a pinch of salt.
2. Next drizzle a little olive oil in your hands, just a tiny bit! Pick up some of the kale and rub it, massaging the leaves until they darken in color and become tender.

I swear that a massaged kale salad tastes a million times better – we wouldn’t prep kale any other way! Prefer to massage your kale without oil? Try a little fresh-squeezed lemon juice instead!

How to Make Kale Salad with Cranberries

Really, this is one of the best kale salad recipes around! Kale salad with cranberries, almonds, and a quick and fresh lemon kale salad dressing.

1. Wash and massage the kale per the recipe below.
2. Prep remaining ingredients and add to a large bowl.
3. Place dressing in a jar and give it a shake (or whisk in a bowl). Toss with the salad.

Variations

This easy peasy kale salad with cranberries is loaded with tasty mix-ins. There are so many raw kale salad ideas! I chose to add carrots, broccoli, red onion, dried cranberries, cheese, sliced almonds, and sunflower seeds, but you could totally get creative here and empty out your crisper drawer! Add some avocado when serving if you’d like.

• Raisins would work excellent instead of the cranberries or try other dried or fresh fruit like apples!
• I used cheddar cheese here (a favorite salad mix-in of mine!) but feta cheese, parmesan, or goat cheese would work well too. You could even go dairy-free and make this scrumptious salad vegan!
• Swap out almonds for other nuts like pecans or walnuts.
• Make it a meal and top with cooked chicken, steak, grilled shrimp, or salmon. Skip the meant and sprinkle with your fave grain like quinoa or add in chickpeas.

More Kale Recipes

Leftover kale can be stirred into pasta, blended into pesto, and even baked into crispy kale chips if the craving strikes! The possibilities are endless. I even love a little kale on my pizza when I have it handy. Is kale good in a salad? It’s so crazy versatile!

If you get a chance to try this easy kale salad, let me know in the comments below!

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