Sautéed Kale with Garlic and Olive Oil

Sautéed kale is a fantastic, versatile side dish, but can also can be turned into a meal when tossed with cooked pasta, grains, or beans — or served atop toasted bread. This recipe also makes for a tasty vegetarian pizza topping.

Any kind of kale will work here. Choose from your standard curly kale, blue-tinged Lacinto kale (also called Tuscan or dinosaur kale), or red kale (aka Red Russian). With elongated stems and relatively flat, puckered leaves, we like Lacinto kale for its ease of washing and cutting — plus it tends to be more tender than other types. While all varieties offer similar nutritional profiles, red kale is considered to be the sweetest, though this is more apparent in raw preparations.

Don't be alarmed by the seemingly large amount of kale in this recipe; the volume reduces greatly as it cooks. You'll want to remove the thick stems before slicing the leaves, but you certainly needn't toss them out. If you'd like to include the stems here, thinly cut them and add them to the mix. You could also save them for another meal, especially if you stockpile the stems from a few more bunches of greens — they're excellent cut into one-inch pieces and braised with chiles, spices, and of course, garlic.

To further offset the bitterness of the kale, feel free to squeeze in a bit of lemon juice before you cover and steam the greens.