Southwest Kale Salad with Cumin Ginger Sage Dressing is a refreshing and vibrant entrée salad or side salad. Loaded with southwest flavors and crunch, this salad is lovely for serving guests!
The man cake and I do this thing.
It’s a waiting game and it involves avoidance behavior with a hint of laziness and a competitive edge.
This is how it works: we each procrastinate completing tasks that need to be done to see if we can hold out just long enough so that the other person does it. This is really romantic.
Making coffee Saturday morning is one I typically win because I have no qualms about pretending to be asleep until the coffee is brewed and in my mug.
Taking out of the trash. We’re about even keel here. I say it’s a man’s job. He says I’m the one that fills it up. We meet in the middle by letting that sucker pile up until we rival Shell Silverstein’s imagination.
I’m sorry, but if Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout would not take the garbage out, I sure as hell ain’t neither. The one I lose at every time is finding the house key in the dark to unlock the door. I get cold and then all overwhelmed so it takes but a split second before I cave and sift through my gazillion keys to force each one by feel into the lock.
I find the best way of winning this highly skilled waiting game is by acting as though I don’t notice or care about the task at hand. This transfers the emotion and anxiety associated with the task (because taking out the trash is so daunting) to the other person, and it’s always best to get under your opponent’s skin.
Moving along to this Southwest Kale Salad.
The dressing, you may notice is LOADED with flavors!
I thought it’d be real neat to sauté the garlic, ginger and sage in order to soften the zing and get some flavor going.
So I pressed my garlic, I sautéed, and believe you me, the dressing came out great! I had a sighing (that’s Australian for ripening) head of kale and a hankering for veggies so I made a southwest kale salad and doused it in the dressing.
And that, my friends, is how you lose the dinner waiting game.
If you love salads with lots of goodies, try my Thai Chicken Chopped Salad or my Strawberry Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing.
Southwest Kale Salad with Cumin Ginger Sage Dressing
Ingredients
For the Dressing:
- 1- inch piece ginger grated
- 8 cloves garlic minced
- 8 leaves fresh sage chopped
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoons grapeseed or olive oil
- ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
- 3 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
For the Southwest Kale Salad:
- 2 large heads kale stems removed, chopped
- 1 can black beans drained and rinsed
- 1 ear corn cooked
- 1 red bell pepper chopped
- 3 stalks green onion chopped
- 1 ripe avocado diced
- 2 hard boiled eggs
Instructions
To Make the Dressing:
- In a small skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of grapeseed oil or olive oil over medium heat and sauté the minced garlic, ginger, and sage. Cook 2 minutes then add the ground cumin. Sauté until very fragrant, another 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Add the garlic/ginger/sage to a blender with the remaining dressing ingredients and blend until completely smooth.
- Refrigerate until cold before serving.
- Note: If you'd like to skip the sautéing process, feel free to do so. Simply add everything to a blender and blend until smooth. If you go this route, reduce the amount of garlic to 3 cloves and the ginger to 1 teaspoon.
To Make the Southwest Kale Salad
- Add water to a saucepan and gently place the eggs inside (ensuring they're covered with water). Cover the pot, bring water to a boil then immediately remove pot from heat. Allow eggs to sit in hot water for 10 to 12 minutes. Immediately transfer to a cold/ice water bath so that shells are easy to peel. When cool enough to handle, peel off the shells and chop the hard-boiled eggs.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the shucked ear of corn. Cook about 5 to 8 minutes until corn is puffy, sweet and delicious. Allow corn to cool enough to handle then carefully cut the kernels off the cob.
- Wash the kale well and pat it dry.
- Remove the leaves from the stems. You can save the stems for a smoothie or discard them. Chop the leaves well and add to a large mixing or salad bowl.
- Add the remaining ingredients and toss together with salad dressing.
Nutrition
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Just made this dressing (swapped cilantro for the sage and added a roasted jalepeno). Blended it all in the Vitamix to a smooth emulsion, then used part of it to marinate some pork chops! Chops are on the grill, salad is waiting to go. Looks and tastes fantastic!
Ah jeez, marinating meat with the dressing sounds like a FANTASTIC idea! Hope it turned out well for ya!!
Simply yum. I definitely gonna try this and put a version of mine in my blog. And surely will link to your post mentioning my inspiration! Keep up the good work!
That dressing is to die for! I feel I could have it by itself from the cute little jug in your picture. And garlic, I can’t do without it, so dont mind all the peeling and chopping. Enjoyed reading about your little waiting game!
I love this colorful salad loaded with all the good stuff! Your ginger dressing sounds incredible, too! Thanks for sharing, Julia.
Oh, yum – this ginger dressing sounds amazing! Gorgeous photos too! 🙂
Lord almighty, love, you crack me up on a daily basis.
GIMME DAT GARIC PRESS!
LOL! I’m thinking I should do a Savora giveaway… 🙂
This salad looks so healthy and delicious, the dressing is fab, and I’m totally coveting that beautiful garlic press!
OMG…you gave up on garlic?? Crazy talk. Though I understand where you’re coming from. With my garlic obsession, I do end up chopping crazy amounts. The garlic press definitely comes in handy in those situations.
Love the blend of cumin, sage, garlic and ginger here….must have a really cool outcome. Where’d you get the idea to bring them all together?
Hahahah! OMG. My hubs and I do the same thing! Also, can I hire you to come to my house and make salads all week? Yours always look delish!
I love a colorful salad! This sounds super yummy Julia… and that dressing… oh dear heavens!
Haha, my husband and I play the same game! This salad looks amazing. That dressing has my name written all over it! yum.
I’m so weird, but I actually LOVE smashing and chopping up garlic. It’s… fun! But I never ever ever have to take the garbage out (it IS a man’s job), so there’s that 😉
This dressing sounds killer! I just tried kale (for the FIRST time) in a salad yesterday. LOVE.
You’re Hired! Come hang with us…you can do the garlic, we’ll do the rest! 🙂
Julia!! Loving this. The dressing, the salad, flavors!! Yum!
Thanks Tieghan! It was nice branching out to different dressing flavors…normally I just mix oil and balsamic together and call it good 😉