Andrea Banerjee

When I’m craving greens, I jump on it! After a lot of indulgent meals and comfort foods during winter’s painfully slow exit (>.<), I was finally ready for some salad last week.

Problem: I end up hating every salad dressing that I buy.  I decided to keep things really minimal and tossed together this salad as an experiment. If you really enjoy kale, I find that seasoning with oil and lemon doesn’t dilute the flavour as much as store bought dressings, and you can tailor quantities based on your taste. I always love to add a strong crumbly cheese to my salads but you could easily forego this, or sub in other fun toppings like roasted chickpeas or dried cranberries.

Ingredients

• 1 head of kale, washed
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp olive or sesame oil (or preferred oil for dressing)
• 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds or slivered almonds
• 1/4 cup crumbled sharp parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup grape tomatoes
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 medium avocado (optional)

Directions

`1. Fill a bowl with warm water and a pinch of salt. Place kale leaves in the water and massage between your fingertips for about 3 minutes. Drain and pat dry.

2. Roughly chop kale into preferred size for salad munching!

3. Coat kale in olive oil and massage again. Cut lemon in half and squeeze fresh juice onto kale to taste. Massage one more time.

4. Add remaining ingredients to bowl. Toss to combine.

5. Top with scooped avocado or a dollop of hummus. Enjoy!