Castellon's Kitchen: Kale Salad with Walnuts and Golden Raisins

It's been a while since I've posted a salad recipe. What better time to share salad recipes than in summer, right? If you don't know, I looove salad and most of the time, I make the same basic salad every week so my kids will eat it too. Maybe I'll adjust the ingredients a bit depending on what I have on hand, but its essentially the same. Rather, I save my experimental ingredient salads, like this one, when it's just my husband and I. No need to hear the unnecessary cries from my kiddos...Ewww, what's that? For me, salad is comfort food. I feel like there's something missing from my diet if I don't have salad for lunch every day. So I was happy to see this Kale Salad with Walnuts and Pecorino on Instagram from Smitten Kitchen. It looked so yummy, that I was inspired to give it a go. I know some may be grimacing because, lets be honest...its kale and kale is hard to like. I like kale, but I've also had kale I didn't like. For me, if I'm eating raw kale in a salad, it has to be chopped small, rubbed and paired with something sweet, preferably fruit or a sweet dressing or both. So, I decided to make a small adjustment by making the dressing with orange juice and honey rather than just lemon juice as called for in the original recipe and it was absolutely delicious! My personal litmus test is whether my husband likes it, since he is not a fan of kale. I gave him a small bite of my salad...and then another...and then he wanted his own bowl. 😁That's a win in my book! Enjoy!

Kale Salad with Walnuts and Golden Raisins

Slightly adapted recipe from Smitten Kitchen

Serves 4

1/2 cup walnuts, roasted and chopped
1/4 cup golden raisins
2 T apple cider vinegar
2 T water
1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 small clove of garlic finely minced or grated
pinch of kosher salt
2T olive oil (first addition)
1 bunch of kale (I used curly kale), rubbed and washed
1/3 cup Pecorino cheese, grated
2 T olive oil, (second addition)
juice of whole orange
1 T honey
salt and pepper to taste

Prepare Walnuts: Heat oven to 350. Toast walnuts on baking sheet for 10 minutes, turning once. Let cool and then chop.

Prepare Raisins: Place raisins in a small bowl and add vinegar and water. Let soak in liquid for 30 minutes or so. (Oops, the original recipe calls for heating the raisins in a saucepan to re-hydrate with vinegar, I missed that step and just let them soak while I prepped everything else)

Prepare Crumbs: Toast breadcrumbs, garlic, olive oil in a skillet until golden brown. Salt to taste. Set aside.

Prepare Kale: Remove tough stems from kale and rip curly leaves into small bite sized pieces. Rub torn kale between your hands to soften leaves. Rinse and spin leaves and transfer kale to a large bowl.

Prepare Salad:
Add pecorino cheese, raisins (without the vinegar mixture), walnuts, olive oil, orange juice, and honey and toss until coated. Taste and add salt and pepper and adjust with left over vinegar, honey or orange juice. Let salad sit for 10 minutes to let the flavors meld. Toss with Breadcrumbs before serving. Enjoy!