It’s supposed to be Spring already but I’m sitting inside the house watching 8″ of snow fall outside the window. I’m ready for salads and sandwiches and fun, cold drinks and sun and warmth. So, in the interest of straddling the weather and the calendar, I made a salad with wintery additions and color. In all honesty, it’d be great at any time of the year but color-wise it looks more like fall than Spring.
But, it tastes timeless.
Usually I get whole kale leaves but, despite it being Spring (the perfect time for growing greens) there was no organic kale at my grocery store. I can’t wait to finally have my own kale to harvest in the garden! I used a big bag of already cut and washed kale for this and … it was super easy, so I would recommend it, especially if you can find it organic!
As far as the garbanzos go, I pan fried them! Have you ever done this? I’ve been doing it for salads for years. It makes them a little crunchy, something we gluten-free people don’t always get on a salad since we can’t have croutons.
The sweet potato was prepped by cutting it up into cubes and boiling it until tender. Make sure to not overcook it or they will be mush when you try to stir your salad with the dressing. I also added some red onion because, well, I love red onion in salads and it adds that little bit of punch with all the sweetness of the maple syrup. I used my Maple Mustard Dressing.
Once all the ingredients are prepped, simply put them all together in a big ‘ol bowl and serve it up. It will keep in the refrigerator for a day or two but I wouldn’t suggest it for longer than that. Kale just gets weird …
- 8 cups chopped kale
- 2 large sweet potatoes, cubed, cooked and cooled
- Red onion rings, to taste
- 1 can garbanzo beans, drained (reserve the aqua faba for something else!)
- ¼ tsp. onion powder
- ¼ tsp. garlic salt
- 1 tsp. cane sugar
- 1 Tbls. Butter
- 1 recipe Maple Mustard Dressing
- In a bowl, sprinkle the onion powder, garlic salt and cane sugar over the beans and stir well.
- In a skillet over medium heat, fry the garbanzo beans in the butter until they are toasty brown.
- Remove from heat and allow to cool.
- In a large bowl, combine kale, sweet potatoes and onion. Add beans when they are room temperature. Drizzle dressing (the amount is up to you!) overtop of kale and stir to combine well.
- Serve within 2 days.