This easy kale and white bean salad is packed with good-for-you ingredientsit is appropriate and can be done in advance. Thanks to the creamy tahini dressing, the salad is plant-based, vegan, and very satisfying.
I love this kale and white bean salad, which has been our staple salad recipe for years! It’s one of my favorite kale recipes, for sure! The base is kale, which we massage with lemon juice and salt to make a soft, delicious salad base. Then we add white beans, walnuts, and my favorite tahini sauce!
For hearty salads, check out our white bean and prosciutto salad, this delicious quinoa salad, and our cauliflower chickpea salad. Or, if you’re on a white bean kick, you’ll love our easy white bean soup!
Key Ingredients
- Kale: Use your favorite type of kale in this salad. Since kale is a dark green, it can sometimes be overwhelming when served raw. So, I like to do three things. First, remove the ribs, which are very tough. Second, rub with lemon juice and salt, third, cut a little.
- White Beans: I love kale with white beans and usually reach for cannellini beans, broad beans, or peas.
- Walnuts: We keep this salad plant based and like to add walnuts for extra sticking power. If you don’t have walnuts, substitute other nuts or use seeds like pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds.
- Tahini sauce: Tahini is amazing in this salad. I use my favorite creamy tahini sauce for the dressing, but you can use this salad dressing for tahini. Both are easy to make and taste great! I use homemade tahini to make it, but your favorite store-bought jar works, too!
- Lemon: You’ll use the lemon to grate the kale and squeeze over the salad for extra fresh flavor.
How to Make Kale and White Bean Salad
I start this salad the same way I start all my kale salads. I massage the kale. Strip the leaves from the ribs/stalks, and throw them into a bowl with a pinch of salt and lemon juice. Then use your fingers to massage the salt and acid into the kale leaves. As you do this, you will notice that the leaves turn a deep green and begin to feel soft and supple.
The salt, acid, and massage help break down the kale (just like when you cook it). Adding this step to your salad-making repertoire allows you to transform hearty (and sometimes difficult to digest) green kale into a tender, delicious salad green.
Once the kale is prepared, it’s time to build the salad. Add the white beans and walnuts, and pour over the tahini sauce. Once the salad is finished, it should last a long time in your fridge, making it a make-it-yourself lunch. It will be good for at least a day if not two or three.
This kale and bean salad would go great next to this garlic flatbread, homemade pita, this easy vegetable soup, our chicken and vegetable soup.
Tahini Kale and White Bean Salad
This easy kale and bean salad is packed with good-for-you ingredients, it’s craving-worthy, and it can be made ahead of time. Since kale is a dark green, it can be difficult to digest when served raw. We rub kale leaves with salt and lemon juice to prevent this. Some of the structure of kale is broken down by rubbing salt and lemon on the leaves, making kale a deeper green color and more tender than when left unripe.
For the dressing, we use our favorite tahini sauce recipe. It’s very easy to do. I also love this tahini salad dressing, not as creamy but still delicious.
Makes 4 large Salads
You will need it
1 bunch of kale, about 7 cups of leaves
Ounces of walnut halves, about 3/4 cup, lightly toasted
2 (15oz) cans of white beans such as chickpeas or cannellini beans, about 3 cups cooked
1/2 cup homemade tahini sauce
Juice of half a lemon
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Lemon wedges, optional
Directions
1Remove the leaves from the hearty kale stems and cut or separate them. Rinse the leaves under cool water, then pat or toss to dry.
2Place the kale in a large bowl, then use your fingers to massage the leaves with 1/4 teaspoon salt and the juice from half a lemon. After about a minute, the kale will be deep green and feel more tender in your fingers.
3If using canned beans, drain and rinse them. Add the beans, walnuts, and most of the tahini sauce to the kale. Toss well, then adjust with more sauce if the salad seems dry – we like to be generous with the dressing.
4Top with freshly ground black pepper and serve with a few lemon wedges as garnish.
Tips from Adam and Joanne
- To toast the nuts: Add them to a dry pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant and lightly browned. Look closely at the nuts, they can go from being fried to burning quickly.
- Cooked chickpeas: Canned chickpeas are not good, but for homemade, here is our recipe for cooking chickpeas.
- The nutrition facts given below are estimates.
Food Per Serving
Serving Size
1/4 of the recipe
/
Calories
462
/
Perfect Oils
it’s 32g
/
Saturated Fats
4g
/
Cholesterol
0 mg
/
Sodium
523 mg
/
Carbohydrate
it’s 35g
/
Dietary fiber
11 g
/
Total Sugar
4g
/
Proteins
18g
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