Easy kale recipes?

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I usually have a bag of prewashed lettuce, spinach or kale for salad. With recent ecoli breakout, I want to stay away from raw leafy green. I often cook spinach and lettuce when they don't look fresh enough for salad by adding this to soup or just microwave then add some sesame oil with salt and pepper. I tried this with kale and it was so bitter that I had to trash it. Somehow cooking it make it more bitter. I saw many recipes for sautéing kale, never had sautéed kale before, are they bitter? Also saw people would blanch them to remove bitterness, but does that take away lots of nutrients too? Any easy recipes?

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  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    easy?

    dont eat it.

    blech.

    lolololol

    you could substitute it much like you would use spinach or any other green, i imagine. i just dont like the taste of it at all. ill take the spinach. i eat mounds of that lol
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,978 Member
    edited January 2018
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    I don't think cooking kale is difficult in any way.

    The easiest thing I do w/it is to just drop some hand shredded kale into a pot of Progresso lentil soup. Add some pepper flakes if you like (I do) and then just heat and serve. Doesn't get any simplier than that.

    Sauteed kale is also a snap. Just chop up some kale leaves, add the fat of your choice (bacon is a favorite, otherwise just olive or veggie oil, butter or rendered bacon fat, if you save it as I do).

    Toss in the kale and sautee on low heat til done. Add garlic to the pan if you like. Covering the pan w/a lid and adding a little water, if needed, will steam the kale and prevent burning. Season to taste and add red pepper flakes if you like b4 serving.
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    edited January 2018
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    Grilled kale caesar salad. I saute the kale with just enough spray to keep it lubed, and then cook it until it wilts, a little linger than you would spinach. I'll toss in some smoked paprika, and then coat it in Bolthouse Caesar and a squirt of lemon. Yum!
  • Tried30UserNames
    Tried30UserNames Posts: 561 Member
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    Kale and Chicken Soup - 4 servings

    3 tablespoons olive oil
    ½ white onion, diced
    2 garlic cloves, diced
    ¼ teaspoon fennel seed
    ¼ teaspoon chile flakes (optional)
    ¼ teaspoon rosemary, chopped
    1 teaspoon salt
    1 quart chicken stock
    1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
    1 cup curly green kale, torn
    1 cup of your favorite gluten free pasta (we like lentil,
    chickpea or brown rice), cooked
    plus lemon zest for garnish

    In a soup pot, saute onions thru salt in olive oil for 5 minutes. Add stock and bring to a simmer. Add chicken breast, cover and cook over medium-low heat for 15 minutes or until chicken is tender. Remove chicken and shred. Add chicken and kale to the pot and bring to a simmer. To serve, ladle soup into a bowl over cooked noodles. Garnish with lemon zest.

    Sweet Potato, Kale, Quinoa Salad - 2 servings

    for the salad:
    ½ large sweet potato
    2 tablespoons olive oil
    salt to taste
    ½ bunch curly kale, stems removed, leaves washed and torn
    1 cup cooked quinoa
    ¼ cup mint leaves, roughly torn

    for the dressing:
    2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
    ⅛ teaspoon ground cumin
    zest of and juice of 1 lemon
    3 tablespoons olive oil
    1 small garlic clove, grated
    salt to taste

    Preheat the oven to 400°F.

    Peel the sweet potato, cut into 1-inch pieces, and toss with the olive oil, and a large pinch of salt. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until tender and starting to brown. Remove from the oven and let cool.

    Make the dressing. Whisk together the first five ingredients and season to taste with salt.

    Toss the dressing with the kale, then top with cooled sweet potato, cooked quinoa, and mint leaves. Add salt to taste.

    Both recipes from goop.com
  • skinnyjingbb
    skinnyjingbb Posts: 127 Member
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    Thanks so the input, I don't hate kale, I eat them raw with a lit bit Japanese sesame dressing and sun dried tomato. I just had a bad experience of after cooking the kale it turned extremely bitter. it seems to need sugar and acid to cut down the bitterness. I no longer eat sugar so I'll try add a bit vinegar or lemon, garlic and chili to see how it taste