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This Winter Kale Salad Recipe is loaded with fresh seasonal flavors! Grapefruit, balsamic delicata squash, pistachios, and a zippy dressing are combined in this healthy and fresh side dish. Easy to make and ready in 30 minutes!
ThisWinter Kale Salad Recipe is a lot of flavor combinations.
We have hearty kale, bright grapefruit, nutty and crunchy pistachios, fresh scallions, herbaceous parsley, sweet balsamic delicata squash, and a zippy graperuit/balsamic/olive oil/garlic dressing.
It is bright, it is fresh, it is a lot of flavors that come together in a flavortown explosion of yumminess. I am clearly using my best English today. But to put it plainly, thisWinter Kale Salad Recipe is going to be on your recipe shortlist.
The flavors start building with the balsamic delicata squash. We could have sliced and roasted our squash plain Jane like a normal vegetable, but no. We add a 2 second splash of balsamic which gives this squash big flavor. It is a quick and very very easy extra step with big rewards.
Next: grapefruit. This winer cutrus is living its best life now. This time of year it is juicy, sweet, tart, and the perfect addition to ourWinter Kale Salad Recipe. To infuse even more flavor, we add segmented grapefruit (more on that later) to the salad and fresh grapefruit juice to the dressing for double the flavor!
Pistachios are one of my favorite nuts and add great flavor to this Winter Kale Salad Recipe! But they are one of the nuts that I don't stock regularly in my pantry. If you're the same, you can add any nut of choice to this recipe. It's all about that crunch.
Last, we have our herbs. Parsley and scallions round out the flavor, give ourWinter Kale Salad Recipe a certain je ne sais quoi, and make it extra extra tasty.
The most intimidating part of making thisWinter Kale Salad Recipe will be segmenting the citrus (we did it once before in this recipe here!). But have no fear! We will walk through it together.
Segmenting citrus fruit is a way of preparing it so that you get all of the flavor, without the bitter pith. And without all the pith you can really see the beautiful color of the grapefruit!
All you need to segment your grapefruit is a cutting board and a knife. See, easy already.
Cut off the top and bottom of your grapefruit. You can find the bottom since it will have a little round mark where the fruit was attached to the tree. Set your grapefruit down on the cutting board with one of the cut sides down. Its now stable and easy to peel.
Take your knife and begin to cut off the skin of the grapefruit. Go from top to bottom in even strokes and try to cut off all the peel and white pith, while leaving as much fruit intact as possible. You can always go back and trip off any white pith you've left behind.
Hold the grapefruit in your hand and pick your first segment to remove. It will be a piece between two membranes. Slide the knife along the left membrane, then the right and your segment should slide right out. Repeat with all the other segments.
And just like that we have beautiful segmented grapefruit. Pat yoself on the back!
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- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Salad
- Cuisine: gluten-free, grain-free, no nightshades, paleo, soy-free vegan
Description
This Winter Kale Salad Recipe is loaded with fresh seasonal flavors! Grapefruit, balsamic delicata squash, pistachios, and a zippy dressing are combined in this healthy and fresh side dish. Easy to make and ready in 30 minutes!
Ingredients
Scale
For the Balsamic Delicata Squash:
- 1 delicata squash (halved, seeds removed and sliced)
- Olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar
- Salt and pepper
For the Salad:
- 1 bunch lacinato kale (cut into bite sized pieces)
- 1 large grapefruit (segmented (read post for how-to!))
- 3 scallions (thinly sliced)
- ⅓ cup chopped parsley
- ⅓ cup shelled pistachios
For the dressing:
- ½ cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 3 tablespoons fresh grapefruit juice
- 1 clove garlic (minced)
- Generous pinches of salt and pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- Arrange the delicata squash on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, balsamic, and generous pinches of salt and pepper. Toss to coat evenly. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until tender.
- While the squash is baking, add all of the salad ingredients to a bowl. Whisk together the dressing and pour it over the salad. Toss everything to coat and set aside.
- Once the squash is cooked, remove it from the oven and add it into the salad. Give it one more toss and serve.
Notes
When buying balsamic vinegar, it is important to look for a "good" quality product. Most balsamic vinegar are imposers and not the real deal. They are made with lower quality vinegar and spiked with sugar and dyes to make them look like the real deal. Buying a good balsamic, like this one
e, will give you better flavor and is much healthier than the alternatives.
