Sunday evenings in our house means one of two things: making a home cooked meal together or ordering pizza. My husband usually pulls for the latter (shocker!). Since I try not to eat pizza all the time, I always order a salad to go with it. Thankfully our favorite local pizza spot has this amazing kale and mint salad with golden raisins, almonds, parmesan cheese and a lemon vinaigrette that I fell in love with. I found myself craving it throughout the week, so I decided to recreate it at home.

I started by shredding a large bundle of lacinato kale that I picked up from the farmers market. I prefer lacinato kale to curly kale since it is slightly sweeter and less bitter but you could certainly use whatever you have on hand.

Have you ever added fresh mint to your salad? It adds an amazing depth of flavor and is very complimentary to the kale. It also adds an element of freshness, and kind of makes you feel like you should be eating it at a spa ;)

The golden raisins add a slight sweetness while the almonds add a nice crunch. In the past whenever I had almonds on a salad, I always had toasted sliced almonds but I had never had raw almonds. To my surprise, leaving the almonds in their almost natural state adds a lot to the overall dish.

The lemon vinaigrette on the salad from the pizza joint has a slight sweetness and creaminess so I wanted to mirror those flavors. I played around a bit and came up with a slightly sweetened lemon vinaigrette using all natural honey and dijon mustard and it is amazing!

Definitely don't skimp on the dressing! The kale absorbs the dressing well, so you can either dress the salad ahead of time or drizzle it on top before serving. To top off the salad, I added freshly grated parmesan cheese because let's be honest- you can never have enough cheese!

Having this amazing kale salad recipe reminiscent of our favorite pizza spot might not stop my husband from ordering pizza on Sunday nights, but at least I have found a better alternative!

You can enjoy this as a side salad with your meal, or you can add chicken or steak to make it a complete meal. Whatever you choose, I hope you love it as much as I do!

Kale & Mint Salad Recipe

Ingredients For The Salad:

1 bunch lacinato kale, thinly sliced
2 Tbs. fresh mint, thinly sliced
2 Tbs. raw unsalted almonds, cut in half
A handful of golden raisins (about a 1/4 cup)
Freshly grated or shaved parmesan cheese
Optional: shredded chicken or steak

Ingredients For The Dressing:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup champagne vinegar
2 Tbs. Dijon mustard
2 Tbs. honey
2 Tbs. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Combine all of the dressing ingredients and set aside.
Wash and shred the kale and mint into thin strips. Add to a bowl and top with the almonds and golden raisins.
Toss the salad with the dressing and top with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

*Salad dressing recipe adapted from this recipe.