Chopped Kale and Chickpea Salad with Creamy Tahini Dressing
When you need to whip up a quick salad, this one is a favorite. Chopped kale is massaged with a bright and creamy tahini dressing and savory chickpeas. The perfect kale salad for when you want something quick and incredibly delicious. Also holds up for a day or so very well!
Kale Salad with Tahini Dressing
We’re going to keep this one short and sweet. I may be one of those persons that says “I love salads!”, but it has to be a GOOD salad. It needs texture and layers, crunch and pops of flavor.
This kale salad is hearty, flavorful and the tahini dressing is ultra creamy! But the trick to an enjoyable raw kale salad….massage the kale! Kale can sometimes be difficult to enjoy, texture wise and just needs a bit of acid and clean hands to break up some of it’s fibrous leaves.
Creamy Tahini Dressing
There are a slew of tahini recipes on the site and a tahini dressing is really a riff off of tahini sauce, just add a bit more water for a drizzable consistency.
And may I suggest, make a BIG batch of this for roasted vegetables, Lebanese hushwee and for falafel!
Chopped Kale and Chickpea Salad with Creamy Tahini Dressing
When you need to whip up a quick salad, this one is a favorite. Chopped kale is tossed with a bright and creamy tahini dressing and savory chickpeas. The perfect kale salad for when you want something quick and incredibly delicious. Also holds up for a day or so very well!
Servings: 4 servings
Calories: 339kcal
Equipment
Food Processor
Ingredients
Kale Salad
- 4 cups Lacinato or Dino kale chopped or shredded
- 13 ounce Can of chickpeas rinsed
- 3 Persian cucumbers peeled and chopped into 1 inch cubes
- 2 Vine-tomatoes seeded and chopped into 1 inch cubes
- Small bunch of fresh mint roughly chopped
Tahini Dressing
- 1/4 cup tahini
- 2 tablespoons olive oil for drizzling
- 1 garlic clove chopped or grated
- 1 lemon zested and juiced
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
- Pinch of cayenne
- ½-1 cup cup water
Instructions
- To make the dressing, add all of the tahini dressing ingredients into a food processor and pulse until smooth and creamy. You may need to add more water depending on consistency. Taste for seasoning and adjust.
- In a large bowl add the chopped kale and start with 1/4 worth of the dressing and use clean hands to massage dressing into the kale.
- Add the rest of the salad ingredients and mix to combine so the dressing coats everything. Add more tahini dressing if desired and serve.
Notes
Make a double batch of the tahini dressing, it will last in a sealed container such as a mason jar for several days.
If the tahini dressing thickens (which it will as it chills in the fridge), just whisk or blend a bit of warm water until a pourable consistency.
Kale holds up very well to dressings, but if you wan to make ahead, I suggest not adding the tomatoes or cucumbers until you are ready to serve.
Nutrition
Calories: 339kcal | Carbohydrates: 37g | Protein: 13g | Fat: 18g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Sodium: 171mg | Potassium: 690mg | Fiber: 9g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 2697IU | Vitamin C: 51mg | Calcium: 121mg | Iron: 4mg
This post was originally published in January 2014 and updated in April, 2021 with added nutritional information and other helpful tips.
This salad looks yummy! I love using tahini for salad dressings too.
I’m embarassed to say that I had to google “Persian cucumbers” to make sure they were interchangeable with the cucumbers I normally see at the grocery store. This salad looks so delicious, and I can’t wait to make it in my kitchen!
Haha…sorry about that! Persian cucumbers usually have less/no seeds and are smaller. I like them better than regular cucumbers because of that!
Looks great! I haven’t tried using tahini as a dressing… might have to now.
Thanks so much Kayl! Please try tahini…just needs to be thinned out but tastes amazing with salads and veggies!
Hello Samantha. This is the 1st of your recipes I’ve tried as I needed a salad in a pinch. It’s great! I have a question for you plus a tip I learned for prepping kale that you may want to pass along to your followers. Since kale can be quite tough and almost unpleasant to chew at times, once you have cut the ribs out and have spun it or dried it in a towel grind a bit of salt on it and gently give it a massage. This helps break it down and gives it a nicer texture. You may then cut back the salt in the dressing. I also learned that kale is very durable and have left this massaged kale in the fridge overnight and unless I’m delusional [quite possible lol] it was actually better the next day. Chiffonading is also another method of making it more palatable. My apologies if this method has been covered in previous recipes.
My question is regarding tahini. Does it all generally have a bitter taste, and if so what can I do to alleviate that? Is there a specific brand you use? Maybe I didn’t add the appropriate amount of lemon juice so if that’s the answer so I may have to do a redo.
Thanks and looking forward to trying many more.
Darcy above the 49th