Baby Kale Salad recipe features the tender, healthy greens tossed with a maple vinaigrette for a touch of sweetness.
I’m a big kale fan, but when it comes to eating it raw, I tend to have it in moderate amounts. I’ll sometimes thinly slice up one or two kale leaves and add toss it along with some lettuce to add nutrition and texture to the salad.
Then I tried baby kale. This tender green can easily shine on its own as the star of a salad. I decided to try this with my maple vinaigrette dressing, and that was a winner. Folks around here go wild for this dressing, with maple syrup adding a nice touch of sweetness. That’s just perfect to go along with the baby kale.
We’ve enjoyed this Baby Kale Salad with Maple Vinaigrette alongside our entree. I’ve listed this as serving 4 as a side salad. You could easily add some protein for a light main course, noting that it would probably serve two or three as a main in these proportions.
I always like to have something in the a salad to add a little crunch, to make the texture more interesting than just eating leaves. Lately I usually include pumpkin seeds for that purpose. We are nut free in our house due to allergies, but you could certainly swap almond slices or something else for the pumpkin seeds.
Recipe card
Baby Kale Salad with Maple Vinaigrette
Baby Kale tossed with a super tasty maple vinaigrette for a healthy change-of-pace salad.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 10 mins
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Salad
- Cuisine: Healthy
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp mustard
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- pepper to taste
- 5 cups baby kale
- 1 cup colored bell pepper, chopped
- 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, toasted
- ¼ cup feta cheese
Instructions
- Make the vinaigrette by whisking together the ingredients from the olive oil through the vinegar. Add fresh ground pepper to taste, whisking it to incorporate into the dressing. Set aside.
- In a large salad bowl, toss the kale leaves with the bell pepper and feta cheese. Add two tablespoons of the dressing, then toss to thoroughly coat the kale leaves.
- At this point, you toss more dressing in the salad bowl, or reserve the remainder to pass at the table for people to add additional dressing if they like. Either way, finish the salad by topping it with pumpkin seeds, then serve.
This tasty Baby Kale Salad is almost my favorite way to enjoy raw kale. I’ll still have to go with kale pesto as my top choice for raw kale! Featured here tossed with linguine:
Melissa Falk
Love this vinaigrette recipe. I am always making my own dressings and I will add this one to my repertoire. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Cooking Chat
I’ll have to check out some of your dressings, Melissa.
Michelle @ The Complete Savorist
I love Kale. Can’t live without vinaigrettes, but you really piqued my interest with a MAPLE vinaigrette. How very clever.
Cooking Chat
Thanks Michelle! I’ve been working maple syrup into our vinaigrettes here & there with very tasty results!
Chicago Jogger
I tried baby kale for the first time recently and I agree, it’s really good!
Cooking Chat
Yes! I like regular kale fine but the baby kale is great, especially for a salad.
Veronica
This is something I can whip up right now…I have all the ingredients 🙂 I’ve been wanting to try a new dressing- this one’s going to be it.
Cooking Chat
nice! Love when that happens!