Those who know me know that despite my appearance I don’t put a huge emphasis on eating healthy. I mean I eat healthy in the sense that I prepare most of my own foods and don’t eat a ton of junk food. BUT I also don’t think too hard about things. My favourite foods include burgers and pizza. Deep fried is a food group to me. Doughnuts make me weak in the knees.When in doubt I say add more butter or bacon (and sometimes both!). While I do enjoy eating foods that aren’t the best for me, I also listen to my body and feed it tons of fruits, veggies and legumes as it demands. I do a pretty aggressive menu plan each week where I plot out what I’m eating for each meal that week. Typically the week ends up with a good balance of meat, fish, vegetarian and vegan options without me consciously making an effort to include or exclude any particular foods.
I say all this to say that for the longest time I strongly believed in the motto “you don’t win friends with salad”.
Salads just never really did it for me. Sure every once in a while I’d saddle up and get a salad from Freshii or Pax. One of my best memories in life is of the chopped salads we had on one “crazy” spring break to a retirement community in Boca Raton, FL during undergrad (true story). I loved buying salads from other places but they always felt like a ripoff. And of course making salads at home were just never quite the same. And don’t get me started on lettuce-based salads that just aren’t fulfilling.
Enter the kale revolution. I discovered over the past year or so that I LOVE a kale salad. Kale makes for a hearty salad. Those kale leaves are sturdy so you’ve really got to chew. Plus since kale holds up well you can dress your salad without any concerns around the leaves wilting. Total bonus. Normally I would whip up some salad dressing to use but one day I came across something revolutionary…
I was on one of my bestie’s (aka Mandy) blogs and saw this recipe for a kale salad that was dressed with mashed avocado instead of salad dressing.
::record scratch:: hold up! wait a minute! yes, avocado as a dressing. And incorporated in the silliest, easiest way. You basically just use your hands to mash the avocado into your kale. Brilliant, isn’t it? You also add some lemon juice and olive oil to the mix. Avocados are basically my jam so this is a match made in heaven.
Mandy adds apples and walnuts to her salad. I got a bit jiggy with things and added some pomegranate and pumpkin seeds to the mix. I’ve since used this idea as the basis for many salads using anything and everything that I have on hand from chickpeas to chicken to corn to other foods that don’t start with the letter “C”.
I seriously can’t say enough about this salad. You may just win some friends with this one…
Kale Salad with Avocado Dressing
A bunch of kale, finely chopped
Lemon juice
1/2 Avocado
Olive oil
Salt
Salad fixings that make you happy (I used apple, walnut, pomegranate seeds and pumpkin seeds)
Combine the kale with the next four ingredients and mash with your hands until combined.
Carefully mix in your salad fixings and serve.
Inspired by this recipe
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