Kale and Sprout Salad with Soft Boiled Egg

This quick and easy Kale and Sprout Salad with Soft Boiled Egg makes a satisfying and healthy lunch. Ready in 15 minutes, this salad is packed with veggies and it is also gluten-free.

If you want some carbs to go with this salad try my mayo-free potato salad.

I used to enjoy eating kale around ten years ago. Then I suddenly went right off of it, labelling it in my mind as tough and hard to swallow. I don’t quite recall how I fell out of love with kale. Perhaps I just had the bad luck of purchasing a couple of offensive packs on the trot.

Since I stopped eating kale, it seems to have grown impressively in popularity.  Cookbooks and food blogs are loaded with salads, side dishes and mains based around kale. Not to mention an army of green smoothies laden with it too. That’s just as well since this brassica is chock full of virtuous nutrients. But I’ve been watching this trend, from the sidelines, in wonder and amazement. Until recently…

This Raw Kale and Sprout Salad is the result of a sneaky trip I took to New York last November. Whilst there I re-developed a taste for kale because several of the meals I ordered on holiday were too tempting to pass up even though they featured kale. It turned out that raw or cooked, I still do enjoy plenty of these leaves to munch on.

Once home, I stocked up on a large bag of kale at the supermarket and set to work creating my very own kale recipe – there’s always space for one more on the web.

Here are a few things to know about this super healthy Kale and Sprout Salad:

• the vegetables – kale, sprout, radish, spring onion and avocado – are all served raw
• a generous slick of hummus adds an indulgent yet healthy creamy edge to the salad
• dukkah gives crunchy bite and flavour
• soft boiled egg adds protein and a little more luxurious creaminess
• including a handful of chickpeas turns it into a more substantial lunch

As far as the hummus goes, use regular, lemon & mint or even beetroot. Either way, expect plenty of robust flavours and textures in this Kale & Sprout Salad. It is definitely a salad for the cooler months.

And here’s a thing – the kale is massaged. That may sound fancy. Maybe even pretentious. But believe me when I tell you that massaged kale is the way to go for a salad. Gently rubbing the kale leaves between your fingers helps break down the tough fibres in the leaves. As a result, it will become more tender, shrink slightly and darken. Massaged kale is not tough or fibrous, but it is a delight to eat. I picked up that tip from my friend Christine from Mid Life Croissant, who I got the pleasure of meeting whilst in New York.

But like always in the kitchen, there are a few rules to abide by, even on the kale massaging front:

• if your salad is going to sit in an acidic dressing for a while before serving, there is no need to massage – the acids will naturally soften the leaves
• large leaves will need massaging longer than shredded pieces
• be careful not to overwork the leaves – rubbery kale is just as hard to stomach as the fibrous stuff
• baby kale is tender enough already – rubbing this variety is not necessary

For anybody feeling self-conscious about massaging a vegetable, relief is at hand. Just the briefest of finger work is required for this salad since the kale is chopped fairly finely.

More great salad recipes

Have you made this kale and sprout salad? Please consider leaving a review to tell me if you enjoyed it.

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