This right here is the BEST kale salad. It’s the one salad that never fails me and brings all sorts of exciting flavors and textures. It features massaged kale, lemon miso tahini dressing, crispy chickpeas, sweet potatoes, avocado, and sliced almonds. It’s so easy to put together and always delicious.
Everyone has their own salad preferences and these are mine:
Kale is the superior salad green and it MUST be massaged (more on that later).
Homemade salad dressing is always better. Put lemon tahini dressing together with any additional flavors and it will probably be perfectly rich and creamy.
Must include sweet potatoes – gotta have those starches!
Need a crunch. The chickpeas and the almonds really do it.
Flavors! It takes about 2 seconds to sprinkle a spice on something you’re roasting. Those 2 seconds go a long way.
The Rundown
This salad meets all the criteria. More specifically, it has a lemon miso tahini dressing. Miso is such a versatile ingredient and brings so much to whatever you add it to! The kale is chopped and massaged with a little olive oil, nutritional yeast, and sea salt. By “massaging” the kale, I literally mean massaging it with your hands. This helps it soften and taste less bitter!
The only real cooking involved here is roasting the chickpeas and sweet potatoes. You can use whatever spices you want here, but I highly recommend smoked paprika for the chickpeas. Paprika is cool, but smoked paprika really takes you to flavor town. The difference is that smoked paprika is made from chilis that are smoke-dried and crushed, whereas regular paprika is made from dry chilis that are crushed. I used curry powder with the sweet potatoes and they were some of the best sweet potatoes I’ve ever roasted.
Last thing you do is just assemble and enjoy!
The BEST Kale Salad (with Lemon Miso Tahini Dressing)
Ingredients
- 2 cups chopped kale (~ 4-5 stems of curly kale)
- ½ an avocado
- 1 tsp nutritional yeast optional
- sliced almonds
Lemon Miso Tahini Dressing
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp tahini
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp paprika
- 1 tsp white miso
- 2.5 tbsp water *adjust according to your liking
Crispy Chickpeas
- 1 cup canned chickpeas
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp tamari
- light drizzle of olive oil
Roasted Sweet Potatoes
- ½ tbsp curry powder
- ½ tsp red chili powder
- sea salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- light drizzle of olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 F.
- Chop kale and massage it with your hands in a little olive oil, nutritional yeast, sea salt, and lemon juice. You can go ahead and use the kale as is too, but massaging it is recommended for the softest texture and least bitterness.
- For the dressing, simply mix all the ingredients in a small bowl: lemon juice, tahini, garlic powder, paprika, white miso, and 2-3 tbsp water until you're at desired texture.
- Next, rinse the chickpeas and chop the sweet potatoes into 1-inch cubes. Mix the sweet potatoes with curry powder, red chili powder, sea salt, pepper, and olive oil. Mix the chickpeas with smoked paprika, tamari, and olive oil. Put the sweet potatoes and chickpeas on a baking sheet and roast for 20-25 minutes. Toss once at 12 minutes.
- Assemble the salad. Start with massaged kale, then add the chickpeas, sweet potatoes, avocado, and almonds. Finish off with the lemon miso tahini dressing.
For more fun ways to eat kale, check out…
Avocado Kale Salad Toast with Crunchy Chickpeas
The croutons and caramelized onions sound delish! Glad you enjoyed!
Made today during a chilly winter day with warm roasted butternut squash and baby kale – it was nicely balanced and felt really filling! Added some croutons and caramelized onions. Will definitely be adding to our winter salad rotation.
Thanks so much for the kind feedback Dina! I’m so glad you enjoyed it and I’ll have to try using the tahini sauce on asparagus this spring!
Thanks Anisha! I made this last night (with one large sweet potato; I think a range of sizes would work) and it was DIVINE. I quadrupled the tahini sauce; I plan to use it all week on just about everything (it’s wonderful drizzled on grilled asparagus). Thanks for a delicious recipe.
Ah you’re right, thanks for bringing that to my attention! 1 medium sweet potato cut into 1-inch cubes should work!
How much sweet potato? I don’t see an amount specified. Thanks!
You would love that tahini dressing, Caitlin! It’s so creamy and perfect for this salad 🙂
This salad sounds amazing! I love kale so much but I’ve never tried it with a tahini dressing. Can’t wait to try this one soon!
Thank you so much for the kind words Steph, I’m glad you enjoyed it as much as I do!
This salad was sooo delicious! The dressing and the seasonings for the sweet potatoes and chickpeas were unreal. Will definitely make this again.
I am just getting into kale salads and this was the first recipe I tried and I can already know it’s my favorite! I also added green beans and prepared them the same way as the chickpeas which was really good! I posted pics of my dish on my vegan instagram story @jenniferfoshey !
Thanks so much Erin! I’m so glad you liked it!
this salad was a hit!!! absolutely love the lemon & tahini combo. and definitely recommend adding in avocado like shown in the picture, even though it’s not noted in the ingredients. everything anisha makes is amazing!!