Hi friends! How are you?! Hungry? It’s currently 4:59 pm and I’m hungry for dinner. I’m not gonna lie to you, Marlowe and I tend to eat dinner on the very early side. I sleep better without a super full belly and it gives us time to have a snack if we’re really wanting it later, haha.But now lets talk about lunch, shall we? Well, I guess salads could be dinner too– though I normally like to go for something warm for dinner. But yeah, are you guys salad people? I’m not. Anyone who bought my cookbook can easily see that salads are not a huge part of my life.  Though I will say they have been growing on my lately. I guess the whole trying to go mostly raw thing has helped that. I mean, how do you go mostly raw an ignore salads? I guess if I really did eat only fruit it would work– but I don’t know, veggies are cool too. I’m rambling about nothing right now. The point is, I’m not a big salad person— it has to be a really good and well developed salad for me to enjoy it. You can’t just toss a bunch of stuff in a bowl and be like “this is your salad”— that will not work for my taste buds. Everything has to blend and balance together.

This salad does that. Not only is it well balanced in flavor, but also from a nutritional standpoint. I am in no way one of those people that believes we need to be pumping protein into our guts with every meal— I honestly think we over do it with protein in our culture, but whatever. This salad is packed with protein for those who are looking for it. It has loads of healthy fat + healthy omegas + a delicious amount of carbs for energy too.You know to be completely honest though, if you’re worried about food combining, maybe this isn’t the perfect meal because it does have the cooked root veggies with the raw greens. But outside of that, I think this is a really, really good meal. We’ve had it three times in the past week or so. Even Marlowe likes it (though we keep out the sweet potato and tomatoes for her).


This recipe is also completely oil free. I told you guys away ago that I was switching to the high carb, low fat diet (HERE and HERE). But that in no way means NO fat— it just means less fat– and only completely natural fats— no processed oils around here anymore. (Ahem, except when you place a bag of chips in front of me. They are still my weakness— but ahem, outside of that NO oils in my kitchen cooking. Okay okay, and yeah, when we go out to eat I’m sure I’m eating oil, but again, I do the best I can when I can, so if I’m making food at home, I avoid).

This recipe is also great for a week of meal prep. I like to make a big batch of potatoes + a big pot of quinoa and then toss everything together for lunch. You can also make the dressing ahead of time– since there is a good amount of lemon, the avocado shouldn’t brown too fast. But you may want to eat it within 30 hours or so. You’ll probably find that you have most of the ingredients at home. I’ve written down a lot of great substitution options though if you want or need to sub something out 🙂

After you’ve made it, you can eat right away or it’s super easy to pack for lunch out or whatever. It’s light, but filling and will leave you feeling great after, not heavy and tired. Promise. So ya ready to make a salad that doesn’t suck? Cool, lets do it!



You’ll need:

-1 head of kale, washed and chopped (small to medium pieces or strips)
-2 cups baked sweet potato cubes — for this I chop up the potato and bake in oven on a sheet tray (no oil) until tender. sub: butternut squash, delicata squash, carrot.
-1 1/2 cup cooked quinoa
-1/2 cup goji berries. sub: raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries
-2 cups diced tomato (optional)
-4 avocados
-1 1/2 tablespoons mustard (we love this brand. But any good quality organic + natural mustard will do. Marlowe always asks to eat it plain with a spoon— I think thats gross, haha).
-3 tablespoons lemon juice
-1 teaspoon mustard seeds (for an extra kick– optional)
-salt + pepper to taste




How to:


-smash one of your avocados in one bowl.
-add lemon juice + mustard and blend well
-add salt and pepper to taste
-cut your remaining avocado into cubes
-in a large mixing bowl add kale, quinoa, goji berries (or dried fruit), and avocado
-pour on dressing and mix and massage until well combined and kale has softened
-add in tomatoes and sweet potato (I used a white sweet potato, nom) and toss
-add another sprinkle of salt and pepper if you’d like, or a touch more lemon.
-tada a well rounded and balanced salad for a happy mouth and gut!


Really, you could just blend the dressing with kale and then add everything else— but I like to add the other stuff in there to make it soft and blended in more. You might want to consider adding in the sweet potato before you mix the dressing to smash it up in there. Or you might want to consider adding the avocado chunks after blending, so you can have more whole big pieces, if you fancy that. Play around with it! The key is having the acid + savory-ness of the dressing + the bitterness or kale + the sweetness of fruit + potato. I think you guys will be quite happy with this recipe– whiter you’re making it for lunch, as a dinner side, for a party, or for meal prepping your week 🙂

Alright friends! I’m off to eat more healthy food…. and probably some chips too. Because: balance 😉

I hope you guys enjoy this recipe! If you’d like to see more salad-y stuff like this, let me know! I make food everyday and eat a lot of food– sometimes I just don’t think to document and post about it. So if you’re wanting to see more of certain style of food or a specific recipe, just ask!

You can see more recipes HERE and HERE
and more mostly raw vegan recipes HERE

Alright friends! Have an amazing night/day/whatever!

4 Comments

  1. man i love kale recipes but have trouble finding it here! (or better…its at a further away grocery store and i'm lazy, haha!)

  2. This looks yummy and so nutritious, I am definitely going to try it. Thank you Drea!

  3. Perfect timing actually 🙂 I just bought a bag of organic quinoa yesterday. I will definitely be giving this a try. To be honest, I don't like salads that much either, which I guess is weird is you're a vegan. I'm very particular on how the leaves look and taste, so I guess I could be classified as picky.

    ~Laurali Star

    http://www.lauralistarxo.com

  4. This looks amazing, I love salad! And I used to stay away from combining cooked and uncooked foods but these days I am embracing it. Today for lunch I am having a spinach, sweet potato and quinoa salad with a lemon mustard dressing – all I am missing is the avocado!