Kale and Wild Rice Salad
This salad is packed with kale, avocado, wild rice, chicken, apples, and topped with homemade lemon balsamic dressing. It’s seriously SO GOOD and makes the perfect hearty healthy salad.
Lately, I’ve been on a salad kick and I love making yummy healthy salads. I’ve been focusing on creating salads that are full of nutrient-dense ingredients. This salad is by far one of my all-time favorites. So many of my favorite wholesome ingredients in one recipe! This salad is a recreation of my favorite salads @cubbies located here in Utah. I’ve been obsessed, ever since I tried it.
This salad give you a perfect wide variety of wholesome ingredients. It has healthy fats (avocado and olive oil), whole grains (wild rice), protein (chicken), vegetables (kale), and fruit (apples). It’s a perfect combo of everything you need for a delicious nutritious meal.
Benefits of Eating Kale
Kale is one of the most nutrient-rich leaf vegetables. Kale is packed with fiber, antioxidants, calcium, potassium, and vitamins A, C, B, and K. Incorporating kale into your daily diet will help you stay healthy and get all the nutrients your body needs. This salad is a perfect way to eat kale for meals so you get some nutrient-dense leafy vegetable in for the day.
Looking for some other recipes that have kale? Try these:
Benefits of Making Homemade Salad Dressing
Having homemade salad dressing is one of the best things you can make to avoid all the not-so-great stuff that is packed in-store brought salad dressings. Making homemade dressing means that your dressing will be full of real and fresh ingredients, have no preservatives/chemicals added, lower in sodium, no refined oils, no added refined sugars, taste better, and is 10x better for you. You’ll be surprised at just how easy and quick it is to whip up a homemade healthy dressing.
Here’s what you need for this Kale and Wild Rice Salad:
- Bunch of Kale
- Lemon
- Apple
- Avocado
- Wild Rice
- Chicken
- Optional toppings: Goat cheese, cranberries, and toasted sliced almonds
- Homemade Lemon Balsamic Dressing:
- Balsamic vinegar
- Olive oil (or avocado oil)
- Dijon mustard
- Lemon
- Pure maple syrup or honey
- Salt and pepper
Tips for making the Perfect Kale and Wild Rice Salad:
- Use a Bunch of kale instead of a bag of kale: Buy a bunch of kale rather than a bag of kale. A bunch of kale just tastes fresher and better.
- Get a fresh real lemon: Squeezed fresh lemon tastes 10X better than using a pre-squeezed lemon juice bottle. Also, a fresh lemon doesn’t have added preservatives as the lemon juice bottle has.
- Massage the lemon into the kale: Massaging the kale helps soften the leaves and makes it taste less bitter.
- Wild rice: My favorite wild rice is this one. It’s organic, full of whole-grains, and tastes AMAZING. If you don’t have wild rice, brown rice is a great substitute.
- Toss the cooked hot rice with the massaged kale: This is the most important step and makes the salad all come together. The hot cooked rice helps steam the kale leaves a little bit and softens the kale. It’s worth doing trust me. If you pre-made your rice the day before, warm it in the microwave and then add to the kale.
- Let the dressing soak into the kale: Before adding the chopped ingredients to the kale. Pour the lemon balsamic dressing and toss until combined. Once combined with the kale leaves let the dressing soak into the kale for 10 minutes and then toss in the rest of the ingredients.
I hope you give this hearty healthy Kale and Wild Rice Salad a try!
If you try this recipe, I’d love to know! Feel free to tag me @fullofwholesome on Instagram, write a comment below, or send me a message.
Kale and Wild Rice Salad
Packed with hearty fresh kale, avocado, wild rice, chicken, apples, and topped with a tasty homemade lemon balsamic dressing. It's seriously SO GOOD. This salad is a recreation of my favorite salad @cubbys located here in Utah. I've been obsessed ever since I tried it.
servings - 3
Equipment
- Rice cooker
Ingredients
For the Salad:
- 2 bunch of Kale
- 1/2 of a juiced lemon
- 1 1/2 cup Chicken (diced and cooked)
- 1 cup Wild Rice Blend (Brown rice works too)
- 1 Apple
- 1 Ripe avocado
- Optional toppings: goat cheese, cranberries, and sliced toasted almonds.
For the Lemon Balsamic Dressing:
- 2 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp Olive oil
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/2 of a juiced lemon
- 2 tsp Pure maple syrup (or honey)
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/8 tsp Pepper
For the Marinade Chicken:
- 1 pound Chicken breast or tenders
- 1 tbsp Olive oil
- 3 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp Minced garlic
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Black pepper
- 2 tbsp Rosemary (dried or fresh)
Instructions
To Make The Salad
- Remove the Kale leaves from the stems and finely chop the kale. Place chopped kale into a medium-size bowl. Juice half of the lemon and pour over the kale and massage into the kale until softened (about 7 minutes).
- Mix together the dressing ingredients in a jar or bowl. Pour the lemon balsamic dressing over the salad and toss. Let the dressing soak into the kale for 10 mins before adding the rest of the ingredients.
- Next, add in the hot cooked wild rice (make sure the rice is nice and hot so it steams the kale a little bit) and toss to combined with the kale. Next add the diced chicken, chopped apple, chopped avocado, and any additional toppings. Toss until combined.
Cooking the Rice
- Use a rice cooker or another method. Add 1 cup water and 1 cup of wild rice and cook for 25-30 minutes until the rice is cooked.
Grilled Chicken Marinade Recipe:
- Place chicken into a gallon-size ziploc bag
- Whisk together all the marinade ingredients. Pour the mixted marinade into the chicken bag.
- Seal the bag and use your hands to mix the marinade mixture so it evenly coats the chicken. Refrigerate for 1 hour or up to 24 hours.
- Preheat a grill to 350 degrees and cook each side for 6-7 minutes until the chicken is cooked. Let it cool for 5 minutes, then chop the chicken into bite size pieces.
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