5 Chef Upgrades for Your Kale Salad

Love it or hate it, the kale salad has moved from trendy-dish-of-the-moment to here-to-stay perennial. Here are five ways chefs make kale salads even better.

1. Giada’s clever trick.
TV chef (and owner of a new eponymous restaurant in Las Vegas) Giada DeLaurentiis freezes a wedge of Gorgonzola to make melt-in-the-mouth shavings for her prosciutto-and-fig studded kale salad.

2. Kale two ways.
Jessica Koslow from Sqirl in Los Angeles purees kale for a pesto to dress her barley salad (which also has chopped kale leaves).

3. Vietnamese-inspired.
When cooking at home, Paul Qui of Qui in Austin, makes steak salad with baby kale and a fantastic, spicy fish sauce dressing.

4. Caesar on steroids.
Ben Towill from New York City’s Fat Radish adds hard-boiled eggs and crisp bacon to his hefty kale Caesar.

5. Thanksgiving’s healthier side.
When Ryan Hardy of Manhattan’s Charlie Bird created a multitextured salad for Turkey Day, he tossed kale with candied pecans, apples and crisp pancetta.

Kristin Donnelly is a former Food & Wine editor and author of the forthcoming The Modern Potluck (Clarkson Potter, 2016). She is also the cofounder of Stewart & Claire, an all-natural line of lip balms made in Brooklyn.

Related: Delicious Kale Recipes
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More Incredible Salads

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