In just 20 minutes, whip up a homemade fall kale salad topped with tahini dressing. With flavors of goat cheese, cranberries, and honey, this is the perfect side salad to serve during Thanksgiving and the fall season.
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I love making hearty salads that can be prepped ahead of time and can sit in the fridge without wilting. This massaged kale salad is just that!
Plus, it's filled with the perfect fall toppings - goat cheese, dried cranberries, pepitas, and topped with a honey and tahini dressing.
Be sure to try my red wine vinaigrette brussel sprout salad if you're looking for more unique salad recipes.
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What You'll Learn In This Recipe
- How to clean and destem kale.
- Tips to make ahead and store leftovers. This hearty salad is perfect for this!
- Fixing salad dressing with a broken emulsion (when the oil separates).
If you want even more helpful tips for improving your skills in the kitchen, sign up for my free 5 day email series with tips to instantly become a better home chef.
Ingredients You Need
- Tahini
- Honey: Feel free to add additional honey if you'd prefer a sweeter dressing.
- Lemon juice
- Morton kosher salt/finely ground black pepper
- Extra virgin olive oil: Need help purchasing a bottle of high quality oil? I can teach you everything I learned in Italian culinary school about purchasing EVVO.
- Kale: To clean the kale, push the leaves off the stalky stem, then roughly chop the leaves.
- Goat cheese: Buy pre-crumbled goat cheese if you're in a hurry.
- Red onion
- Dried cranberries
- Roasted pepitas: I like to buy pepitas that are salted to give the kale salad an extra kick of flavor
How To Make This Recipe.
1. Add the tahini, honey, lemon juice, salt and pepper to a mixing bowl and whisk together.
2. While whisking, drizzle in the extra virgin olive oil until it's fully combined.
3. Using clean hands, massage the kale with tahini dressing. Then, toss together half of the goat cheese, red onion, dried cranberries, and pepitas.
4. Place the salad on a serving tray and top with the remaining toppings.
Expert Tips
- Make Ahead: To prepare the salad ahead of time, chop the kale and massage in the tahini salad dressing. This can sit, covered in the refrigerator for 24 - 48. When you're ready to serve, add goat cheese, red onion, dried cranberries, and pepitas.
- Leftovers: The great thing about kale is that it holds up well, even coated in the salad dressing, because it's a hearty, leafy green. If you have leftovers, they will last up to 1 week in the refrigerator. It does continue to soften the longer it sits, which is why I'd suggest only making it 24 - 48 hours before an event.
Recipe FAQs
First, tear the kale leaves off by pulling the leafy part down and off the stem. Next, clean the leaves and chop them into large pieces.
Don't worry! You can use an immersion blender to blend the dressing together. This will help you achieve a creamy dressing.
This means that the emulsion broke. An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that don't want to naturally mix together. In this recipe, that's the tahini and olive oil. If you notice the salad dressing breaking, whisk it back together or use an immersion blender.
More Salad Recipes
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Fall Kale Salad with Tahini Dressing
Equipment
- serving tray
Ingredients
- ½ cup tahini
- ⅛ cup honey
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon Morton kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon finely ground black pepper
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 pound kale stemmed and roughly chopped into pieces (about 2 large bunches)
- 6 ounces crumbled goat cheese
- ½ medium red onion thinly sliced (about ¾ cup)
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- ½ cup roasted pepitas
Instructions
- Add tahini, honey, lemon juice, salt and pepper to a mixing bowl. While whisking, drizzle in extra virgin olive oil until fully combined.
- Using clean hands, massage kale with tahini dressing. Toss together half of the goat cheese, red onion, dried cranberries, and pepitas. Place on a serving tray and top with remaining cheese, onion, cranberries, and pepitas. Serve immediately.
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