I like a layered salad bursting with flavors, don’t you? If yes, you’ll love this kale pomegranate goat cheese salad. The ingredients are obvious, kale, pomegranate and goat cheese, with a generous dousing of balsamic mustard dressing, finished off with candied walnuts.
This is a lip-smacking salad that will delight your tastebuds. You have the hardy crunch from the kale and walnuts, while the pomegranate arils burst in your mouth with every bite. This is no simple salad. After adding the dressing, it makes its way to the bottom of the plate and drags a little of the goat cheese with it. The goat cheese melts just a little and provides a silky coating with the dressing.
I was inspired to make this salad after joining my niece, Jasmine, creator of Fanci Fantastic to celebrate her birthday at VNYL. If you clicked on the VNYL link, please excuse Bob Geldolf’s finger!
VNYL has a great menu. We ordered one of everything from the small bites menu – there was a group of us, don’t panic. All of the dishes were very nice, we ate like Queens. However, the one dish everyone agreed was the bomb dot com was the kale salad. I dug around to see what the ingredients were and soon realized that they had used candied walnuts to finish off the salad. That subtle difference really rounded out the flavors and complemented the dressing wonderfully. I had to create my own version so that I could share it with you. So here we are!
This kale pomegranate goat cheese salad will go with anything at anytime of the year. It travels well too, thus making it a great picnic salad.
It will be picnic season in NY soon and this salad will likely be part of the menu. I have tickets for PopUpDinner Brooklyn and Pinknic. So much fun will be had – I’ll tell you all about it soon.
Although this salad is layered with rich and crunchy ingredients and requires much mastication it doesn’t leave you feeling overwhelmed, a little goes a long way, so be prepared to share.
Kale Pomegranate Goat Cheese Salad
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp dijon mustard
- 1 1/2 tbsp lime juice
- 2 tbsp agave
- 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 5 oz kale hardy stems removed and chopped
- 1/2 cup goat cheese
- 1/2 cup pomegranate arils
- 1/3 cup candied/caramelized walnuts
Instructions
- Whisk together, mustard, lime juice, agave, vinegar and oil until you have a smooth dressing, then set aside.
- Layer kale on a large plate or serving platter.
- Drizzle a generous amount of the dressing all over the kale.
- Sprinkle with half of the goats cheese, then half of the arils, then repeat with the balance.
- Finally sprinkle with walnuts and serve.
