For me, summer means salad and BBQs and this salad is delicious with barbecued anything! It has great flavours and textures and is full of a variety of nutrient dense ingredients. I think kale has such fantastic flavour and texture when it’s treated correctly… but sometimes big undressed pieces of it can seem grassy or have a bit too much bite. Whenever I use it raw in a salad I like to roughly shred it and allow it to soak up flavour, it keeps its great texture still but doesn’t over power other ingredients. The lentils and quinoa keep mean that it works as a whole meal as well as in smaller portions as a side.

I have made this salad so many times since I first posted it and made heaps of substitutions. If you can’t get hold of pomegranate molasses maple syrup or honey also work well. Feel free to add more or less of things as you guy. I’ve made it with and without the cucumber, it’s better with but still good without! I’ve also used sweet paprika instead of sumac, not the same but still yummy.

You can double this and feed heaps of people. I’ve eaten it as a side with spit roasted chicken and lamb, by itself for lunch and as part of many a share table spread. It’s a great one to bring to a barbeque too, and perfect with roasted chicken.

Serves 4 

Ingredients

2 cups cooked french green lentils

1 cup cooked quinoa

1.5 cups roughly shredded kale

1 tsp olive oil

1/2 cup roughly chopped parsley

1 lebanese cucumber roughly chopped into 1cm pieces

seeds from 1/2 a pomegranate

2 Tbs sunflower seeds

2 Tbs pumpkin seeds

1/4 cup roasted almonds, roughly chopped

1/3 cup spring onion sliced very finely

100g greek feta, crumbled

Dressing

Juice and zest of one lemon

1 tsp pomegranate molasses (or just molasses)

1 Tbs olive oil

1/4 tsp all spice

1/2 tsp sumac

Salt and pepper

Directions

Mix the dressing ingredients until well combined.

In a large bowl gently massage the 1 tsp olive oil into the kale. Yes really.

Place all salad ingredients in a bowl excluding the almonds and 1/2 the feta. Add the dressing and toss tom combine.

Place salad in a serving bowl and top with almonds and reserved feta.

HH. x