Citrus Kale Salad

If salad is going to be your main course (and I really hope that it is), you’re going to want to make it this one!  This Citrus Kale Salad is my culinary salute to the simple, fresh, raw, amazing-for-your-health salads that have absolutely changed my life!

Giant salads are my jam.

What can I say?  I’ve seen their power first hand when I committed to Dr. Fuhman’s aggressive weight-loss 6-week plan and lost over 21 pounds.

Yeah, salads as the main course work.

In spades!

Now, usually my salads are stuffed to the brim with ALL THE VEGGIES!  But after getting back from Dr. Fuhrman’s Culinary Getaway in Newport Beach I really wanted to focus on making what Chef James Rohrbacher calls a “composed” salad.

Well this salad is crazy-composed my friends.

It sings to you a very distinct song.

Each of the 5 ingredients is there for a purpose, melding together to hit all those flavors and textures you crave!

Let’s make this happen…

If you’re more of a poetry-in-motion type, just skip down to the YouTube video to see how easy this is to make! 

I Like My Ingredient Lists Short and Full of Nutrients!

This salad is raw, it’s no fuss, it’s easy-to-make and it stays fresh for a long, long time (which is great when you’re a weekly batch-cooking prepper like me!).

Here’s your ingredient line-up:

• curly kale
• red cabbage
• raw pepita seeds
• dried currants or raisins
• No-Oil Citrus Dressing
• grated orange zest (optional)

And this Citrus Kale Salad recipe is also chock-full of some seriously amazingly-good-for-you ingredients!  Like kale and red cabbage, those cruciferous veggies, that Dr. Fuhrman wants you to make sure to get into every salad!

And let’s not forget those healthy fats from the raw sesame seeds, pepitas and cashews that mix with our greens to help release even more health-promoting phytochemicals!

Are You Zesty?

There’s one optional ingredient salad in this Citrus Kale Salad (and dressing) that we need talk about.

Zest.

It’s most-definitely one of those hate-it-or-love-it ingredients (you know, like chilies and cilantro).

My hubby was vehemently opposed to the flavor of this salad with the added orange zest while I was like in serious-citrus-flavor nirvana.

If you’ve had overpowering zest issues in the past, be careful with this recipe and maybe add a bit to one bite before you add it to the whole salad bowl!

Kale Loves Being Massaged

If you took a look at the recipe video above, you’ll see that the best part of this Citrus Kale Salad recipe is undoubtedly the massaging!

I’m a get-my-hands-dirty-kinda-girl so I really appreciate digging in there and getting the dressing thoroughly intermixed with that king-of-cruciferous-veggies!

It turns out that a little bit of kale massaging is a very good thing for flavor too–mellowing kale’s sometimes bitter notes into something more soft and light.

5 from 1 vote

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Citrus Kale Salad

A simple, easy-to-prep-ahead, nutrient-rich, vegan, oil free, nutritarian salad recipe with just 5 ingredients and tons of flavor! 

Author Kristen Hong

Ingredients

• 8 cups chopped curly kale (1 head)
• 1 cup chopped red cabbage
• 3/4 cup No-Oil Citrus Dressing
• 1/4 cup dried currants (or sub with raisins)
• 1/4 cup raw pepita seeds
• 2 tbsp orange zest (optional)

Instructions

1. Start by making a batch of No-Oil Citrus Dressing.  Reserve 3/4 cup of dressing and set aside.
   

2. Chop up your head of curly kale, it should yield you about 8 cups.  Mix 3/4 cup No-Oil Citrus Dressing with the chopped kale, massaging together for about 2 minutes.  Arrange kale in serving bowl.
   

3. Top the massaged kale with chopped red cabbage, currants (or raisins) and raw pepitas.  Sprinkle with orange zest if desired.   
   

Recipe Video

Recipe Notes

This salad can be prepared up to a day in advance with the dressing on--be mindful that the kale will soften a bit! 

Also a great recipe to use for salad Mason jars! 

If you give this recipe a try I’d love to hear what you think, please leave a rating and comment below!

Let’s live better together!