Kale. That fibrous beast that it is. Often an accompaniment to my smoothies or a delicious sautéed side to my meals.

This past weekend, I endeavored to organize an ice cream crawl (which I will be posting about in detail later) and well…a lot of ice cream was consumed. Cue a super sugar rush. I decided that the best cure for this was some very hearty roughage- in this case, some serious greens.

I decided to step up my kale game by making a raw kale salad which I thoroughly massaged into submission, making it soft and palatable.

While in the winter, kale and beets are considered heartier vegetables that are perfect for roasting and cooking, I wanted to use these in a more “summer friendly” way by making the entire salad raw, cool and delicious!

Being a summer salad, I also wanted to keep it as simple as possible so this recipe only has 5 ingredients- hellz ya!

Massaged Raw Kale Salad

Serves 3-4

1 Bunch Curly Kale (about 6 cups chopped)
1/2 Large Beet
1/3 Cup Shelled Pistachios
1 Avocado
1 TBSP Lime Juice
Pinch of salt, to taste

Remove the fibrous stems from the kale and chop the leaves roughly. In a large bowl, thoroughly attack- ahem- massage, the kale in sections (about 2 cups at a time) until the leaves become soft and set aside.

Scoop out avocado and mash with lime juice and a pinch of salt in a small bowl. Add to kale and massage into the leaves until evenly coated throughout.

Scrub the outside of the beet and grate using a box grater- this should make about 3/4 cup of shavings.

Toss grated beet and pistachios in with kale salad shortly before serving.