🥬 Kale is touted as one of the healthiest greens one can eat.
According to Dr. Joel Fuhrman, it ranks at the top of his ANDI (basically micronutrient density) score at 1000!
Um, that’s all well and good, but how do I eat it, you may wonder because
it tastes well, so green!
We have put together a comprehensive resource video with tips on how to prepare, as well as recipes that actually taste amazing!
Get these recipes and access to all our other recipes at www.nourishyourlifestyle.com/cheatsheets
OXO BOWL & CUTTER
MANDOLINE
AVOCADO SLICER
Okay, I want to show you my favorite tip about kale, and how you can make kale very easy in your life. When I buy kale, I usually buy it in these big huge bunches. I’ll buy three or four bunches at a time because you have a bunch of them in there.
What I do to store the kale in my fridge if I’m not ready to process it – I’ll show you how I process it – I’ll put a paper towel or two in here, and then I put another bag – because I have a bunch of these left over from previous purchases so this is a great way to like recycle your bags – I put the bag like this, and then I tie up this bag a little bit, and this is how I keep it in my fridge. It stays fresh a lot longer that way if you do that.
So when you’re ready to process your kale you have maybe 20 minutes on hand. Basically what you’re going to do is take out all your kale, and you can wash it if you want. Well, I buy organic kale, but I tend to not wash it every time because I’m lazy. And It’s okay if you’re lazy, too. You’re not going to die from not washing your kale sometimes.
So what I’ll do is I’ll take out all the kale, and I want to process it all right now so I don’t have to think about it later, and it lasts really well because kale is super hearty. So I’ll just take the kale, I’ll take some of it down and then just strip off the kale off the stem. You really don’t want to eat this part it’s bitter and disgusting and doesn’t have a very nice texture.
So what I do is just strip it like that, and then I’ll put it into a big bowl. It doesn’t take very long; I do that for all my kale. Just get rid of that, strip it down, do every single piece that you get – this is how you can buy a bunch of kale at a time and not have to um have it go bad in the fridge like I’ve had happen a million times.
Once you have all your kale in here, you’re going to have a massive amount of kale, for reals, so get rid of any of the smaller stems that you can – just discard those. Then you’re going to have these like big long pieces. Now I like this kind of kale for salads – it’s easier to eat – so if you get this kind it’s good, but it’s the same exact process if you use any other kind of kale, too – strip it off and you’ve got these big pieces.
So then what I do is by hand, I’ll come through and just break it into smaller pieces like this – into pieces that are about this size. Then, I put some paper towel on the bottom, I put a little paper towel on the top, and then I cover the bowl; this one happens to have a nice little cover. If you get a bowl like this, it’s really nice because then you just throw it in the fridge, and leave it there – you can leave it there for like a week it doesn’t go bad; kale is really, really hearty.
And then when you’re ready, just take the bowl out, you take a handful – or two, big handfuls for a nice salad – and then you do the massaging technique. So you break it down into much smaller pieces, and you massage it for probably two to three minutes. Seriously, like just you wanna you know squeeze the heck out of that kale for two to three minutes, and then you’re ready to dress it for your salad or use it any other way.
You can also just take handfuls like this and throw it into your smoothie – so it makes your kale ready to go as soon as you need it, anytime. And this way, it doesn’t go bad in the fridge like have may or may not have happened to me in the past before, so. That’s it! Thanks, bye!
Step one: first, remove the spines from the kale; so if you get the bagged one, you’re just gonna actually rip out all the spines, just discard them – those are super bitter, not great flavor, and you wanna just have the leaf part, so go through and get all of those out of your kale – just take a couple minutes – or, just rip your kale off the spine from the full kale leaves, and discard the spines, and you’re ready to go!
Step two: wash and dry your kale like you would do any other lettuce. Step three: you are going to massage your kale. That’s right, I said massage your kale. Everyone needs a massage now and then and kale is no different.
Just scrunch it, bunch it; you’re just going to mash it together with your hands like this. What it’s going to do is break up those cell walls, and make that kale a little bit softer, as if you were sort of crumpling up a piece of paper and opening it up again, and crumpling it again, like you used to do in kindergarten. It makes the kale a lot more pleasant to eat and chew, and it brings out the flavor a bit more, and it actually just makes it so pleasant you can see it’s really, really forest green, and all of those nutrients are a lot more available to digest at this point.
Step number four: if you choose to do so is just chop it a little bit smaller, if you like. I use this cool double pizza chopper that comes with my OXO salad bowl – makes it very, very easy to chop, but you can just use a knife, if you like. And now here is the real trick, I’m going to let you listen to this kale.
Hear the difference there? Which one would you like to eat, right? And see this is the before – how the kale looked before we actually did all the massaging – it’s really dry and papery; and here’s the after – you can just see the difference, it’s incredible! And trust me the massaged kale is so much more pleasant to eat.
So now we’re just going to prepare the rest of the salad – you can add whatever other ingredients you want to your kale – this is a great base for a salad. I’m actually just grating cauliflower here over a grater, just like cheese – it’s going to of course taste like cauliflower, but it’s a really nice texture. Even use the stems; you use the entire cauliflower this way.
And for my red onion, use a mandolin slicer – get real thin slices of red onion. I’m gonna add my cauliflower to the salad, I’m gonna add the onion; you can add whatever other ingredients you want, mix it up, and your salad is ready to go! And for this salad I made like a little balsamic, shallot, and lemon dressing in a mason jar – just shaking it up – it’s so easy to make your own dressing.
You could add some honey, too, if you like some sweetness. You could add whatever else you like, or even use your other favorite dressing like a green goddess, or a caesar. And then in this salad, I put some cranberries, some sunflower seeds, and some pumpkin seeds.
Hey guys! All right, I thought I would do a little video of me making my salad today. So I have my kale out – these are like massive, massive dino kale leaves. I’m gonna do about four or five because I really love this salad, so – I make it taste so good and I’ll tell you I’ll show you exactly how I’m making it lately.
All right, this is what I’m left with here: massive bowl of kale, now watch what’s going to happen to it when I start breaking it down; let me show you what I do. So I literally just take, and I start breaking it. So you can see how quick it is to just make a salad when it falls on the floor, you pick it up – this, you get a 10-second rule with salad, so it’s all good. Just keep breaking it up.
Now, the trick to kale… and I mean, I have to say, guys: I’ve been eating kale for a long time, and I didn’t use to like kale at all, I really didn’t like it at all in the beginning. But now, I love kale! Like, I love it!
I always put a lot of things on it – I don’t like to eat it plain, really, by itself, but um but I do love it when I have it in salads. And I think my taste buds have really adjusted to the flavor of it, so when I have a salad like this I’m not like, you know, gagging down the salad part going like, “oh just deal with this,” I actually really do love it, and I kind of feel like my taste buds have stopped tasting all the flavor of it.
Now what I do, is I just literally start smooshing it. This is called “massaging kale,” and it’s a very, very necessary step when you’re going to be eating the kale raw. It also is nice because it allows you to feel the stems, and you can discard those as you’re going, but it does actually release a lot of those phytochemicals and make it more available for your body to digest it, which is really cool.
So now, guys, remember in the beginning when I was doing this, and the kale was like up to here? Well, now look at what we have – it’s really soft, see? Real, real soft; a lot more pleasant to eat, so now I just dress it. But I want to just call attention to my hands real fast; check this out: they’re like, I’m like The Hulk – they’re totally green right now – um and you can just rinse this off with um soapy water, so I’m just gonna wash my hands real fast.
All right, now I’m going to take you around my kitchen to get just get the things that I’m going to dress it with. So I’m getting the nutritional yeast; I’m going to get these two types of seeds: they’re pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds; I’m going to grab a lemon over here from my pile of fruit; I’m gonna do a little bit of salt – this is a little Himalayan salt grinder, whatever, it doesn’t matter what kind of salt you use. Um actually, you shouldn’t be using salt.
Nutritional yeast, lemon, avocados – I’m always thinking through like, “I need to have a fat, I need to have a citrus component, these are the flavors I like,” but also there’s important things: if you add nuts and citrus to a green, it helps the body absorb more of the nutrients that way. So, whatever. I’m going to put some hemp seeds in again today like I did yesterday because I just really like them. I think that’s about it, so let’s do it here!
So, got my salad, I’m going to do the avocado. I have a half avocado here; I mean this one, it’s pretty good, like, it was fine – I had it yesterday. A nice way to get the core out if you don’t have one of those fancy avocado tools is just knock it with a knife right into there, and twist it, and it’ll come out. Just be careful that you don’t throw it across the room, like I just did, and then you get cat hair all over your hands, and everything’s gross.
Okay, so I have my little avocado tool – I’m just going to use this because I like it. I just score it a bunch this way, and then – I’ll put a link for this one down below – I use this all the time. I also like to use this to open up oranges, it makes it real easy.
Put that in there; make sure you don’t get that little pit thing. Put your avocado in there, and then what I like to do with the avocado is just like smash it. So I just take a fork and I smash it in, like this, and as you just smash around, it gets all in the kale – a lot of people like to smash kale with their hands, using the avocado and the lemon at the same time, and I think that’s um it’s fine and it works and everything, but to me it wastes a lot of the avocado because it gets stuck all over your hands, and um it’s not necessary.
To break down the kale you don’t need lemon juice, you don’t need salt, you don’t need avocado to break it down; as you saw, all you need to do is just smash it with your hands. I like to do that first, and leave the messy part for the fork, basically. And then we just put the rest of the stuff on – I never measure anything, because as long as you’re eating plant foods and stuff, it’s not that big of a deal. Unless you’re doing nuts and seeds and stuff, some people if you’re trying to lose weight actually, it’s important but, once you’ve gotten to a decent weight, you don’t necessarily need to measure as much – that’s what’s great about the Nutritarian lifestyle – okay, let’s keep going!
So hemp seeds, just gonna sprinkle some of those. Pumpkin seeds,I do just a little bit like this. And I’m sure that this is over what he says, like the one or two ounces per day of nuts and seeds, I’ll end up with more than that during the day, but I’m not really counting at this time.
Then, tons of nutritional yeast. Like, a lot, you guys – put a lot in there. Might do a little bit of salt – watch, this much. That’s about it, for real; that’s all I put in.
And then lemon – I have this cool guy over here – put a bunch of lemon in there, and then mix that sucker up, and that’s how I make the salad, pretty much! And you’ve got a lot of really yummy stuff in there, stuff that’s really, really good for you. Really, this only takes me about five to seven minutes every day, and what I do is what I’ve done, so, done with that – there’s my final salad, you guys! Let me see, I can just taste it – mmm so good!
The above is a transcript from this week’s YouTube video. Click here if you’d like to see the video.
