Crunchy Thai kale salad is a colorful, sweet and spicy dish that will be an excellent addition to your meal. Since the main ingredient is kale, the dish will obviously be healthy. The sweet and spicy taste of the salad will come from the peanut sauce that will be used as the dressing. But first, you need to decide which type of kale you will use for the dish.
“Curly kale is the most common type. The bright green leaves look like ruffles. The flavor is pungent and peppery… Dinosaur kale has narrow green leaves that are wrinkly like dinosaur skin. The leaves are attached to a firm stem that should be removed… Redbor kale is kale with ruffled leaves ranging in color from a deep red to purple,” according to the Mayo Clinic. For our recipe, we recommend that you use curly kale. However, other types can also be used depending on your taste preference and market availability.
The Thai Kale Salad recipe
To make crunchy Thai kale salad, you will need about 5 cups of packed curly kale, ½ cup carrots, thinly sliced, ¼ cup of tofu cubed, 3 radishes that have been thinly cut, 1 tablespoon sesame seeds, ½ tablespoon sesame oil, ½ tablespoon maple syrup or honey, and 1 teaspoon of lime juice.
For the peanut sauce dressing, you will need ¼ cup of unsalted peanut butter, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, ½ teaspoon of chili garlic sauce, hot water, and juice of ½ a lime.
Start by tossing the kale together with the sesame oil and maple syrup in a big bowl. Now, before you continue, you have to give the kale a good massage. “Kale breaks down and becomes more tender and slightly sweeter when it’s massaged, even if it’s for only 5 minutes. It also helps distribute the dressing into every little crevice of the kale leaves,” according to Ambitious Kitchen.
Once that’s done, mix the cubed tofu with sesame seeds in another bowl. To prepare the peanut sauce, mix in all ingredients except the water. When everything has been thoroughly mixed, add 1 tablespoon of water and a little lime juice.
In the final stage, place the kale mixture in a serving bowl and top it off with the tofu mix, carrots, and radishes. Drizzle some peanut sauce on the top and you are all set to tuck right in.
Health benefits
Kale is often considered to be one of the most nutritious plants for human consumption. “One cup of kale is filled with 10 percent of the RDA of omega-3 fatty acids, which help fight inflammation in the body by supporting the endocannabinoid system, fighting heart disease, helping the brain, and more.
The sulfur-containing phytochemicals in kale (called glucosinolates) can also help maintain the body’s normal inflammatory response,” according to Mind Body Green.
Kale is rich in powerful antioxidants like kaempferol and quercetin, which have the ability to lower blood pressure. They also have anti-cancer, anti-viral, and antidepressant properties. The plant has one of the highest concentrations of Vitamin C, equivalent to almost 4.5 times that of spinach. One cup of kale has more Vitamin C than an entire orange.
