Kale & Brussels Sprouts Salad With Almonds & Pecorino

This salad is my new love. We met through our mutual friend, Polly, who brought it to a holiday party I attended recently. I admit that it was not love at first sight. My first impression was “that there’s a whole lotta roughage” but we were thick as thieves before bite one had even made it to my stomach and I ain’t never gonna look back.

Polly’s husband, Wayne, affectionately refers to this salad as “nature’s barbed wire” and while I can’t deny that you’ll fulfill your daily fiber requirements within about three mouthfuls, I assure you that you’ll be going back for seconds. And probably thirds. If there’s any left at that point, that is.

Although it took me 30 years to learn to like some vegetables (beets), I’ve always loved Brussels sprouts so I was delighted to find yet another way to prepare these delicious petits choux.

And there’s probably not a local foods enthusiast alive who is not happy to find another good way to use up some kale. Am I right or am I right?

The kale I picked from our mini hoop house (above) was not Tuscan but it tasted good, nonetheless. Maybe it’s even better with the Tuscan variety – feel free to experiment and let me know what you find.

The first step is to make the dressing. You want to give it a chance to let the flavors meld and develop a bit — probably best to make it half or even a full day in advance if you can.

With that in mind, I made a double batch of dressing (cause I know I’m gonna want to eat this salad again very soon…) I like to make dressing in one of these glass jam jars and LOVE that you can buy these cute, little, red Luminarc lids to make it easy to store things in them.

Once, the dressing is ready, you can get down to business with the rest of the ingredients. I used my handy dandy little Kyocera mandolin to shave the Brussels sprouts up nice and thin – as usual, it worked like a charm.

Don’t skimp on the nuts, cheese or dressing. They provide important rich, nutty, crunchy complements to all the hearty greens and the acidity and bite of the dressing.

This is a hearty winter salad that eats almost like a meal. The recipe is lightly adapted from the Bon Appetit original.

Next: the recipe

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Sandi C.

10:02AM PST on Feb 9, 2012

THANKS!

send a green star

Julia G.

2:02AM PST on Jan 14, 2012

Sounds good :)

Vicky P.

12:56PM PST on Jan 12, 2012

yum

Jessica J.

8:46AM PST on Jan 11, 2012

what a clever way to slice the sprouts and then eat them raw! I love the taste of them, often stir fried with nuts, onion and other stuff, but I will certainly give this a try, thank you ;)

Jennifer C.

4:15PM PST on Jan 9, 2012

Great recipe. Thanks for sharing.

Sue M.

1:41PM PST on Jan 9, 2012

thanks.

Brenda T.

2:43AM PST on Jan 8, 2012

Thanks.

Dianne D.

7:41PM PST on Jan 7, 2012

Natures barb wire. Now that's funny. I just bought kale and wasn't sure what to do with it. I will try this recipe. Just copied it to my desktop.