Massaged Kale Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

The kale salad as we know it today was supposedly invented in 2001 at a restaurant named Lupa in Manhattan. This “O.G.” combined kale with lemon, olive oil, shallots, and ricotta salata. Another version got written up in the New York Times in 2007 from a spot called Franny’s in Brooklyn that featured the leafy green dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, chile flakes, Pecorino, and bread crumbs. Both sound good and, admittedly, I’ve never tasted either—but ask me and others in the know and they’ll share that the kale salad was perfected by my now-extinct alma mater, Northern Spy Food Co.

Northern Spy’s kale salad featured lacinato kale (aka dinosaur or Tuscan kale) massaged with a simple lemon vinaigrette of lemon juice and olive oil, a vegetable that changed with the season, crumbled clothbound cheddar, lemony roasted almonds, and a blanket of freshly grated Pecorino cheese on top. It was sheer perfection—and one of the restaurant’s most popular items. During my year or so tenure there, I would posit that I made thousands of them. Literally. Not at all an exaggeration. (Fun fact: I even made one for Katie Holmes once.)

I think making so many kale salads during my time at the restaurant gave me a bit of PTSD, my hand shivering at the sight of this deep green salad. I didn’t even order it at other restaurants when I saw it on the menu. (Though partly that was because I knew the version I’d become so intimate with could never be topped.) As a result, it wasn’t until recently that I felt I was ready to re-enter its dark green embrace, and I must say—I’m glad to have reunited with it.

Here’s my version.

How to Make Raw Kale Salad

Though I imagine other types of kale would work just fine—I’ve used common curly kale in salads before to satisfactory results—lacinato kale is the way to go with this recipe because it has the benefit of being slightly easier to chiffonade (remove the ribs, roll the leaves into cylinders, and cut into thin strips). The key to making kale salad that some other recipes on the world wide web omit is that you definitely want to massage the leaves with your dressing so as to help the fibers break down and make it a little more digestible. There’s a reason no one really ate kale salads until recently—raw kale is tough. Massaging the kale helps fix that in addition to offsetting some of the inherent bitterness, making it much more palatable. And to reiterate this one more time in case you’ve only been skimming this text: DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!

When it comes to the vegetables, I used some leftover sautéed summer squash/zucchini prepared the same was as for my recipe with a spiced lime sour cream (or a quick roast in the oven works too). Based on the season, other options include sweet potato, carrots, delicata squash, or butternut squash.

Northern Spy would roast its almonds in-house (I apologize for all of the ones that I accidentally burnt because I left them in the oven for too long) and toss them in a lemon olive oil with a generous sprinkle of salt—they were exquisite. But in the interest of streamlining things a bit, regular store-bought almonds are fine.

Other than that, all you need is crumbled clothbound cheddar (it has a deeper flavor than your usual version of the cheese) and a healthy shaving of Pecorino cheese (though Parmesan would also work). [Note: I went light on the Pecorino for photo styling purposes, but in reality it should look like a snow-covered landscape.]

This kale salad makes a great meal on its own, and is also a great dish to make ahead (except for the Pecorino) for a dinner party or to take to lunch the next day.

Yield: One entree-sized salad

Massaged Kale Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

In this recipe lacinato kale gets massaged with a simple lemon vinaigrette and then mixed with summer squash, roasted almonds, cheddar and Pecorino.

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Ingredients

Lemon Vinaigrette

• 1/2 cup olive oil, preferably extra-virgin
• 1/4 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
• Kosher salt and black pepper

For Each Salad

• 4 ounces lacinato kale, washed, ribs removed, and cut into 1/4- to 1/2-inch wide strips
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 ounces cooked summer squash, cut into bite-sized pieces (from about 1 small squash)
• 1 ounce clothbound cheddar, crumbled
• 2 tablespoons chopped roasted, salted almonds
• Pecorino or Parmesan cheese, for grating

Instructions

Make the Lemon Vinaigrette

1. Add the olive oil and lemon juice to a mason jar, close the lid, and shake vigorously until emulsified. Season with some salt and pepper. (You can also do this in a blender or with a bowl and whisk.)

Make the Salad

1. Add the kale to a large bowl along with some of the lemon vinaigrette and massage with your hands until all of the kale is dressed, adding more vinaigrette as needed or to taste (there should be a bright lemon flavor). Season with some salt and pepper.
2. Mix in the squash, cheddar, and almonds. Transfer to a serving dish and use a microplane to make it rain with freshly grated Pecorino cheese. Enjoy.