12 Favorite Kale Salads

Back to work. The Whistler glow lasted approximately twenty-six hours before Amazon swallowed it. Monday was a sprint planning session that ran ninety minutes over schedule. Tuesday was a design review that turned into a philosophical debate about microservice architecture that I won but did not enjoy winning. Wednesday I shipped a code review that had been sitting in my queue for two weeks. I am a Principal Engineer who spends 80% of her time in meetings and 20% wishing she were in the kitchen. This ratio is wrong. I know it is wrong. I am not yet ready to change it.

Banchan Labs: Box Three recipes are finalized. The spring namul collection is complete — kongnamul-muchim, sigeumchi-namul, doraji-namul (bellflower root), and a spring bibimbap assembly card that uses all three namul as toppings. Grace has approved every card. She made one final correction on the doraji card — I had listed the soaking time as two hours and she said four, minimum, or the bitterness would remain. She was right. She is always right about bitterness. I changed the card.

Karen had her first monthly check-in with Dr. Bhandari. The medication is working — tremors are managed, balance is improved, Karen reports feeling "mostly normal, which is a phrase I don't like but it's accurate." David drove her. I offered to come. Karen said, "Stephanie. I can go to a doctor's appointment without my daughter. I have been going to doctor's appointments alone for fifty years." Fair. I backed off. I am learning to back off. It is not my strongest skill.

James and I bought prenatal vitamins on Thursday. We stood in the vitamin aisle at Whole Foods and compared brands with the analytical rigor of two tech professionals who cannot buy anything without reading the specifications first. We chose a brand. We also bought folic acid supplements, because the internet told us to. We also bought a bag of organic spinach, because folic acid is in spinach, and then James said, "Are we the kind of people who buy organic spinach because we read about folic acid thirty minutes ago?" and I said, "Yes, James. We are exactly those people." We laughed in the vitamin aisle. A woman looked at us. We did not care.

Jisoo's weekly letter arrived Sunday. She wrote about the plum blossoms in Busan, which are early this year. She wrote about a new recipe she is developing — a spring kimchi with young radish greens. She wrote about Jun-ho's knees, which are bothering him. She wrote about Eunji, who is considering a nursing specialization in geriatric care. She did not write about Karen, but at the end she wrote: "I think about your family every day. All of your family." I know what that means. She is praying for Karen. She has not stopped.

I made doenjang jjigae on Tuesday, the way I make it every week, the way I have made it every week for three years now, and I thought about the fact that next year, if everything goes the way we are hoping, I might be making this stew while pregnant. The stew would be the same stew. I would be a different person making it. The thought made me dizzy — not with fear, but with the enormity of it, the way a life can pivot in a single month from "woman who cooks for herself" to "woman who is growing someone." I ate the stew. James ate the stew. We washed the dishes together. We went to bed early.

The recipe this week is doraji-namul — seasoned bellflower root, the most labor-intensive of the namul but the most rewarding. Dried bellflower root, soaked for four hours (Grace's correction), then boiled until tender. Tear into strips by hand. Season with soy sauce, sesame oil, minced garlic, gochugaru, a pinch of sugar. Stir-fry briefly in a hot pan. The texture is chewy, almost meaty. The flavor is earthy and slightly bitter in a way that is deeply Korean — a vegetable that resists you and rewards you for the effort. I am developing a relationship with this ingredient. Like most things in my life, it took patience to learn and is better for the difficulty.

We stood in that Whole Foods vitamin aisle laughing over a bag of organic spinach, and it struck me that the week had actually been full of leafy greens in one form or another—the sigeumchi-namul on the Banchan Labs cards, the folic acid conversation, Jisoo’s note about young radish greens in Busan. There’s something about this particular season, the anticipatory kind, that pulls me toward vegetables that feel alive and a little stubborn. Kale is exactly that. Like doraji, it resists you until you work it—massage it, dress it early, give it time—and then it softens into something genuinely worth the effort. These twelve salads are the ones I come back to when I need food that feels purposeful.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 large bunch curly or lacinato kale (about 10 oz), stems removed, leaves torn
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 small garlic clove, finely grated
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup shaved Parmesan or nutritional yeast (for vegan)
1/4 cup toasted pepitas or sunflower seeds
1/4 cup dried cranberries or thinly sliced dried apricots
1/2 avocado, sliced (optional)

Instructions

Prep the kale. Strip the kale leaves from the stems and tear into bite-sized pieces. Place in a large bowl. Discard the stems or save for smoothies.
Massage. Drizzle the olive oil and lemon juice over the kale. Add the lemon zest, grated garlic, and salt. Using clean hands, massage the kale firmly for 2—3 minutes until the leaves darken, soften, and reduce in volume by about half. This step is not optional—it transforms the texture entirely.
Season. Taste and adjust salt, pepper, and lemon as needed. The dressing should be bright and assertive; kale can handle it.
Add toppings. Fold in the Parmesan (or nutritional yeast), toasted pepitas, and dried cranberries. Add avocado slices on top if using.
Rest and serve. Let the salad sit for at least 5 minutes before serving—the kale continues to soften and absorb the dressing. It also holds well in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours, making it ideal for meal prep.

Nutrition (per serving)

12 Favorite Kale Salads — The Leafy Green That Rewards Your Effort