I am all about fun salads lately.  And by that I mean Cobb salads with bacon dressing, Buffalo chicken salads, and most recently, a kale Caesar salad.  Yes!  In addition to being “all about fun salads,” I’m all about telling myself that since I am ordering these salads at nice, non-chain, definitely-not-fast-food restaurants and since they are made with things like lettuce and kale, they are super healthy.

Kale cancels out Caesar dressing.

I made this last Thursday night while Joey was out bowling and he seemed to think it was really weird when I told him I was going to massage some kale while he was gone.  I’d never massaged any kale myself, but figured I’d give it a try as it’s all the rage right now.  Turns out it takes kale from bushy and hard-to-chew, to tender and easier to eat, plus it’s kind of fun.  Can kale be considered tender or is that only a term for meat?  Anyways.  After all kale massaging, dressing blending and crouton making was said and done, I had a quite the salad on my hands, er plate.

P.S. The dressing is completely anchovy-less.  I’m totally fine with knowing they’re in every Caesar salad I’ve ever ordered, I just don’t want to see or deal with them myself.  Sometimes you just need to distance yourself from the anchovy, okay?

Kale Caesar Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken breast
• 1 head kale
• 1 slice bread (whatever you have will work)
• 1-2 cups chopped tomatoes (again, whatever kind you want)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 3 tablespoons Greek yogurt
• 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese (+ more for sprinkling on top your salad)
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup olive oil

1. Heat a pan over medium heat, brush chicken with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and cook until no longer pink, flipping halfway through.  (This took me about 15 minutes but I cooked mine over lowwww heat).
2. Meanwhile, wash, de-stem and chop kale.  Place in a large bowl and begin to “massage,” aka gently rub it together until it just begins to soften and turn a deeper green.  (You can massage as much as you want, I wanted mine just barely softened).
3. Chop your tomatoes (I used zebra tomatoes, they’re the coolest!) and cut your bread into big cubes.
4. Remove chicken from pan, let rest about 5 minutes, then chop into small pieces.
5. Make dressing by adding all ingredients except oil to a food processor or blender.  Once blended, slowly stream in oil.  Et voila.
6. Preheat broiler, then toast bread cubes until golden.  (I like to let mine go a little long so they get all good and crunchy, as all croutons should be!)
7. Assemble salad by layering chicken, tomatoes and croutons over the kale, then drizzle with dressing and some extra parmesan, then devour.

Serve with some roasted corn if you are totally in denial that summer is quickly coming to an end.  And I so am.