30 Kale Recipes to Add to Your Rotation

Chef Missy Robbins of Brooklyn’s Lilia restaurant swaps chickpeas for pasta in her riff on spicy pomodoro. She finishes the dish with a shower of fresh herbs and salty pecorino cheese.

F&W Best New Chef 2017 Jay Blackinton, of Hogstone’s Wood Oven on Orcas Island, Washington, made his reputation taking just a few humble ingredients and turning them into a magical dish. Case in point: this “green” egg, which is soft-boiled and dusted in dried kale, then served on creamy arugula-laced goat cheese and surrounded by crispy grilled kale.

Noma alum Josh Lewis makes his dressing with toasted nutritional yeast (sold at health food stores) and two types of oil. It’s great on all kinds of slaws, like this one made with Tuscan kale and green cabbage, and any salad with sturdy leaves. The dressing can be refrigerated for up to 3 days, so don't dress your slaw until you're ready to eat it.

This comforting, vegetable-packed rice is infused with ginger. It’s best made with day-old rice to absorb all the flavorings.

Chow fun noodles are the base for this unconventional dish, from chef Sheldon Simeon, that’s topped with roast pork and a tangy kale salad and served with a buttery broth.

San Francisco chef Matthew Accarrino makes deliciously light meatballs with a combination of quinoa and breadcrumbs. He bakes the meatballs before simmering them in a vibrant tomato sauce along with kale. 

“Despite its name, sweet brown rice isn’t sweet,” says chef Marco Canora of Hearth in New York City. Instead, this short-grain glutinous rice resembles whole-grain sushi rice. Here, Canora uses it to make a hearty vegetarian risotto packed with cremini mushrooms, Tuscan kale, onion, thyme and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

We like our green juices with a kick, so we add ginger and a slice of jalapeño to this one. Not sure about the spice? This juice is equally delicious without the chile pepper. Either way, we want this right when we wake up.

This fast and super-tasty version of a classic ranch dip features kale, labneh and buttermilk. 

Instead of adding raw kale leaves to a salad, Cortney Burns uses cooked kale in a creamy dressing for roasted vegetables.

Chef Steven Satterfield of Miller Union in Atlanta is a huge fan of kale—especially when it's combined with sweet roasted squash. Look for Tuscan kale (also called Lacinato or Dinosaur kale) when possible; it's tender and tasty. You can eat these toasts as an afternoon snack or serve them to guests during cocktail hour.

This tangy Caesar salad from F&W’s Justin Chapple is topped with light, airy and super-crunchy pan-fried chickpeas.

“I love food that makes noise,” says chef Edward Lee. When F&W challenged the Top Chef Season 9 contestant to make a fast dish with pork, kale, and white wine, he created a deeply flavorful soup, then added crumbled crispy rice cakes that crackle as they hit the broth.

Mustard seeds bring out a delicious flavor in eggs, which get topped with a variety of tasty ingredients, including sunflower seeds, baby kale, cumin, yogurt and avocado.

In this simple rice bowl, Kay Chun combines pork and kale with an abundance of fresh herbs for a dish that’s both hearty and delightfully fresh-tasting.

When chef Rachel Yang finishes a long shift at her Seattle restaurant Joule, this fried rice is her go-to quick snack. It’s a great use for all of that leftover takeout rice and relies mostly on pantry staples, as long as you have gochujang, a Korean chile paste, in your pantry.

Baked in a 9-by-13-inch baking pan, our gluten-free pizza has a thicker, more focaccia-like crust. We like to top our pizza with spicy Italian sausage, kale, and thinly sliced red onion.

"I love a really flavorful pot of greens," says chef Melissa Perello. For this kale-and-cabbage soup, she uses just a little bit of pancetta and a Parmesan-cheese rind to give the broth a rich flavor. "It's definitely the kind of dish that tastes even better the next day," she says. There's nothing better than a dish that keeps on giving.

This refreshing, super-healthy salad is one of chef Marcus Samuelsson’s favorite ways to showcase kale; massaging the leaves with vinegar, salt, and olive oil makes them tender and sweet.

This fall-forward pesto bolsters traditional basil with Lacinato kale for extra heartiness. Winemaker Clare Carver recommends choosing a mild, smooth extra-virgin olive oil here for a buttery richness that complements the toasted walnuts and balances the fresh garlic.

A quick sauté renders baby kale leaves perfectly tender, allowing them to almost melt into the buttermilk-enriched béchamel in chef and cookbook author Alexander Smalls' riff on mac and cheese. For a smooth sauce, make sure all of the dairy is at room temperature.

With its earthy sweetness and dense texture, butternut squash makes a hearty vegetable steak. At Chaval in Portland, chef Damian Sansonetti highlights its complexity with his chorizo spice mix. He blooms the blend of cumin, Pimentón, and coriander in oil to release its aroma, which provides a smoky foundation for this shoulder-season dish.

This seasonal salad from chef Amanda Mack features sugar pumpkin (or butternut squash!), blue cheese, red onion, pepitas, and of course, kale—in this case, baby kale.

“This recipe is my supermarket take on stir-fried water spinach, a go-to vegetable for everyday Viet meals,” Andrea Nguyen writes. “Prewashed greens don’t release much liquid, which can dilute flavors and turn a stir-fry sizzle into a fizzle.”

“Though this salad involves a few steps and a bit of time, it’s for the holidays—and for your family—so it’s worth the effort,” Ann Taylor Pittman writes. “You can get a head start with everything so that all you have to do is toss everything together before the meal.”

Adam Leonti’s ribollita recipe is packed with Yukon Gold Potatoes, cannellini beans, kale, and more.

“The brilliant thing about this recipe is that you can cook it all in one skillet,” Klancy Miller writes. “The key is adding each ingredient at the right time so that everything cooks without burning.”

Fresh ingredients team up with store-bought shortcuts to get this comforting dinner on the table in just over 30 minutes.

Be sure to heat the tortillas in a hot skillet before stuffing them with the ricotta-kale mixture. Warming them up first makes them more pliable and less likely to break during the stuffing and cooking process. Opt for high-quality organic yellow corn tortillas; they tend to be chewier and more satisfying when fried.

A combination of chickpea and rice flours yields a batter that makes these pakoras fry up light, lacy, and extra crunchy. Sweet summer corn and peppers join with hearty kale to give these vegetarian fritters extra heft.