This apple kale salad is my perfect cold weather salad. It’s hearty, juicy, salty, sweet, and irresistibly fresh. This is a great option for holiday gatherings too! I also like it as a light dinner base for a simple protein–like my marinated grilled tempeh!
A finely cut salad honestly makes all the difference, especially with a kale salad recipe. I have persuaded avowed salad haters with a beautiful shaved salad where all components come together harmoniously in every bite. With this vegan kale apple salad, every bite has a little bit of everything for maximum flavor and texture enjoyment. Fans of this kale and sweet potato salad will love this one.
I have this chopped kale salad as 4 servings, but I was able to take down most of it myself while testing and photographing it at home. In a proper meal with a main and maybe a starch, 4 servings is accurate. We top the salad with toasted almonds, but toasted pumpkin seeds would be a delicious nut-free substitution. My personal pick for apple here would be Honeycrisp, Sweetango, Pink Lady, or Ambrosia.
Aside from the fine chopping, I found that the most important step with this salad is an initial massage of the kale. With this recipe, you simple rub a few spoonfuls of the dressing into the sliced kale with your hands, along with some salt and pepper. This step softens the kale and tempers that strong “green” flavor. Most of the kale salad ideas that I post here utilize this step!
Chopped Apple, Kale & Parsnip Salad
Ingredients
Miso Mustard Dressing
- 1 teaspoon light miso
- 2 teaspoons grainy mustard
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup
- 1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
- ⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon olive oil
Kale Apple Salad
- 1 bunch Lacinato kale, stems removed and finely sliced (about 4 cups of chopped and packed kale)
- salt and ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 large apple, cored and finely sliced into matchsticks (I like Honeycrisp here)
- 1 medium parsnip, peeled and finely sliced
- 1 stick celery, finely sliced
- ⅓ cup chopped chives
- ⅓ cup sliced almonds, toasted
Notes
- Some time saving options for this recipe: seek out pre-chopped kale at the grocery store and if you have a mandoline slicer, use that for the apple, parsnip, and celery.
- If you have a small bulb of fennel on hand, shaving it up into this salad would compliment all of the other flavours nicely.
- If your celery comes with the beautiful inner leaves, they are a nice addition to this salad.
Instructions
- Make the miso mustard dressing. In a medium bowl, combine the miso, grainy mustard, Dijon mustard, maple syrup, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper. Whisk these ingredients until thoroughly mixed. You might need to go in with the back of a spoon to mash up the miso and mix it in.
- Slowly drizzle the olive oil into the bowl while vigorously whisking to completely emulsify the dressing. Once you've added all of the olive oil, give it a final whisk. Taste the dressing and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Set aside.
- Add the finely sliced kale to a large bowl. Season the kale with salt and pepper and add 2 tablespoons of dressing to the bowl. Go in with clean hands and massage the dressing/seasoning into the kale for about a minute, or until the kale has softened slightly.
- To the kale, add the sliced apple, parsnip, celery, chives, and remaining miso mustard dressing. Season with a bit more salt and pepper and toss the apple kale salad until all the components are evenly combined.
- Lightly chop the toasted almond slices, and then garnish the top of the salad with them. Serve immediately.
This might be my favorite salad dressing of all time. I was short on kale so did the massage kale and then bumped it up with salad greens right before serving. Used the veg in my CSA so didn’t have parsnip or chive but did put in purple bell pepper and fall radish thinly sliced with the apple and we all loved it. I forgot the almonds, but not on purpose. Make this is it sooo good
This salad looks delicious! Can it be made ahead?
Hi Nancy,
The kale, celery and dressing are fine to be assembled ahead of time. Unfortunately the apples and parsnip can go brown if prepped too far in advance. I also find that the apples get a bit soggy if chopped and dressed too far ahead of time. And I recommend garnishing with the almonds right before serving.
-L
Hi Laura!
Do you think this salad works also well with regular kale, instead of Lacinato kale?
Hi Marijeta! Regular curly kale would be excellent here :)
-L
Friendly FYI – almonds are not a nut. So no need to substitute them for pumpkin seeds if one is allergic to nuts (eg walnuts, hazelnuts, etc).
Beautiful to present and delicious to eat. Rave reviews on the many occasions I’ve made this. Thank you.
I’ve made this salad at least a dozen times – and it is absolutely fantastic. The dressing itself is perfection. It takes a lot of chopping, but that becomes a meditation with such tasty results!
Small changes I make every time (because they reflect what I generally have on hand): I sub in (or just add in) about a cup of shaved red cabbage, and use carrots instead of parsnips. I also sometimes use green onions instead of chives.
It’s a really versatile, really solid recipe.
This salad is amazing! Really easy to make with such a nice combo of flavours and textures. The dressing is so good and would go well on a variety of different salads – definitely keeping it my back pocket for the future!
This is such a delicious recipe! Thanks for sharing a beautiful way to present kale. Love it with the apples.
Made this a couple times = happy diners on both occasions. Contributing this as my side for Thanksgiving – just bringing the dressing separate and waiting to slice the apples :) Thankful for you, Laura!
This was delicious! Enjoyed by all my family. Definitely be a keeper!
Love the mix of flavours in this. The addition of parsnips here is lovely! Thank you for another beautiful autumn salad!
Another fabulous recipe! Swapped out shredded carrot for the parsnips. This salad will be on regular rotation. I had extra dressing which is always a time saver for future salads. Thanks!
This was delicious. What a great fall salad. Thank you Laura.
Whoops sorry for the double review. Problem posting first time.
Wow! Just delicious. Great fall salad. Thank you Laura. The dressing makes this!
This salad is seriously delicious, thank you Laura for another amazing recipe that will be on repeat year round!
Made this tnite just fabulous