Kale seems to be the hot new veggie lately and if you haven’t tried it, you seriously need to. Not only is it seriously good for you but it tastes pretty darn good when cooked the right way or eaten raw in the right salad with the right salad dressing. If you wanna go really healthy, a girlfriend of mine puts kale in her blended smoothie mixed with fruit that she has every morning. Hey, it’s about taking care of yourself right?

This recipe pairs kale with one of my loves, Tofu! I could seriously eat tofu everyday . . just pan fried with soy sauce. . dude, bring it on. So simple and so yummy. And, this recipe was voted 1 of 5: Best New Vegetarian Dishes from Food & Wine Magazine. You’ve got to give this one a try! My kids will eat anything with tofu and soy sauce – most of the time- so they gobbled this up!

Crispy Kale & Tofu Salad

Crispy Kale & Tofu Salad

 

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Author: Hip Foodie Mom

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Asian

Ingredients

• 1 cup short-grain brown rice (or you can get the ready made brown rice from Trader Joe's and just heat it for 3 min)
• Salt
• ⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1½ pounds kale—stems and ribs removed, leaves chopped
• ½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes (ok, I could not - for the life of me- find UNsweetened coconut flakes so I did not include this; still tasted great but will definitely include this for next time!)
• ½ pound extra-firm tofu, cut into ¼-inch cubes (about 2 cups); make sure you get extra- FIRM tofu
• Sesame seeds to sprinkle on top (optional; but makes it look oh so pretty!)
• Dried seaweed to cut and sprinkle on top (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° and position racks in the lower and upper thirds of the oven.
2. Rice: In a saucepan, combine the rice with 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt; bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over low heat for 35 minutes, until the rice is tender.
3. In a small bowl, whisk the olive oil with the sesame oil and soy sauce.
4. Transfer two-thirds of the dressing to a large bowl.
5. Cut up the tofu and -if you need to- pat them down with a paper towel so they are not too wet
6. Add the kale, coconut (if you have it) and tofu; toss to coat, then spread on 2 rimmed baking sheets.
7. OK, so I used an entire bag of kale - yes, I wanted all that extra kale goodness- so had an incredibly hard time tossing all of this. Make sure you use a big, deep bowl and use some plastic kitchen gloves. Just gotta get in there. There's no clean way to do this in order to get everything well coated.
8. Bake for 25 minutes, until crispy.
9. Stir once or twice and shift the pans halfway through baking.
10. Return the mixture to the large bowl and toss with the remaining dressing and rice.
11. Season with salt, sprinkle on the sesame seeds and cut dried seaweed (if you have it) serve right away!

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For a kale chips recipe, go here. And for a Fried Tofu with Spicy Ginger recipe, go here. Enjoy!!