Kale Caesar Salad
A Kale Caesar Salad is a delightful take on the traditional, made with fresh, flavorful ingredients!
Kale Caesar! Our Kale Caesar salad has all of the familiar Caesar salad elements, including Romaine lettuce and anchovies. Rich, earthy green kale leaves add a heartiness of flavor and color to the conventional Caesar salad. Everything else is familiar and delicious, especially the scratch-made dressing. We’re serving this as a side but it is also easily transformed into a big salad suitable for dinner.
This salad mixes the traditional with the modern; tomatoes make an unexpected appearance for a pop of sweetness, and thin slices of crisp English cucumber. Both are rather unconventional for a Caesar salad but here make sense. The English cucumber is seedless, smaller, and has less water than our more familiar cucumbers. It is the ideal choice for its added crunch and fresh flavor. You might see it listed as a “European” cucumber at the grocery store.
Our dressing is a fresh take on the familiar. The dressing uses two different oils, both vegetable and olive oil, in place of egg yolks or mayonnaise. Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, and lemon juice balance the oils with their acidity, and the anchovies ultimately tie together the whole Caesar experience.
I must insist that you try making your own Caesar salad dressing. Even if you skip the anchovies (use Worcestershire sauce), there’s something magical about watching the emulsification process and the freshness of ingredients come together to make a beautiful salad dressing. The dressing is prepared directly in the serving bowl, a wooden serving bowl, preferably, and the rest of the salad is tossed until coated with this gorgeous dressing. Kind of like tableside service that you might experience at a fine dining restaurant, but all in the comfort of your kitchen (and a little less expensive!).
A Caesar salad isn’t a Caesar salad without croutons. I’m using sourdough bread, drizzled in oil and grilled or pan-toasted until golden and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Topple these fresh croutons over the salad just before serving for maximum enjoyment. A Kale Caesar Salad is a delightful take on the traditional, made with fresh, flavorful ingredients!
Kale Caesar Salad is from An Evening in Milan at Table for 12. It is served with Crispy Chicken Milanese, Paccheri Alla Vittorio, and Fresh Pistachio-Filled Cannoli.
Kale Caesar Salad
Ingredients
- 8 oz. curly kale, stripped and torn
- 1/2 head of romaine lettuce, washed and torn
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 cup seedless cucumber, sliced thin
- 1/4 parmigiano cheese, shaved
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cups sourdough bread, torn
For caesar dressing:
- 2 anchovies
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 3 garlic cloves, pasted
- 1/3 cup parmigiano cheese, grated
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
Preparation
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together anchovies, dijon, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic paste, and grated Parmigiano cheese.
- Slowly drizzle in both oils, whisking constantly to create a thick emulsified dressing. Add a tablespoon of water at a time if the dressing is too thick. If broken, use an immersion blender and a tablespoon of water to re-emulsify dressing. Season with salt and pepper.
- Toast sourdough bread in a wide cast iron pan over medium high heat with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Toast until you develop a golden crust on one side. Season with salt and pepper, then set out on a wire rack to cool.
- Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl, then toss with the dressing and croutons. Enjoy!
This recipe is from An Evening in Milan at Table for 12.