Holiday Kale Salad with Maple-Balsamic Dressing

This Holiday Kale Salad complements all the flavors of your favorite holiday meal. Perfect for a no-fuss healthy holiday side.

A simple, yet flavorful salad made with baby kale, Granny Smith apples, dried cranberries, red onion and a delectable maple-balsamic dressing. A fantastic salad that caters to many dietary restrictions, including gluten-free, nut-free, vegetarian, vegan, Paleo and AIP diets.

Plus, it’s super quick and easy to throw together, so it won’t add extra stress to your holiday. My favorite kind of holiday side dish!

this recipe!

How to make this Holiday Kale Salad with Maple Balsamic Dressing

Ingredients

For the Holiday Kale Salad, you’ll need:

• 5 oz baby kale
• 1 medium Granny Smith apple, cored and diced
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries (check ingredients for AIP compliance)
• 1/2 cup diced red onion

For the Maple-Balsamic Dressing, grab these ingredients out of your pantry:

• 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (check ingredients for AIP compliance)
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1/4 tsp sea salt

Instructions

Wash and prep your ingredients. Add all salad ingredients to a large salad bowl.

Add dressing ingredients to a small mason jar or dressing bottle and shake well to combine. Drizzle over salad ingredients and toss to coat. Serve fresh.

Variations

This Holiday Kale Salad is very flavorful and complex on it’s own, but if you want to add a tiny bit more pizazz, here are some ideas:

Add some crunch

Adding some nuts will add a fun crunchy aspect to your kale salad (in addition to the crunch of the apples and onions). While nuts are not AIP-compliant, they are still Paleo, vegan and vegetarian. Just make sure to use gluten-free nuts, if you or any of your guests are avoiding gluten. Chopped pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds or even pistachios would be excellent in this salad. If you’d like to maintain AIP compliance, or stay nut-free, you can also try adding some sliced tigernuts (which are actually tubers, not nuts).

Add some creaminess

Some soft cheese would be excellent to add to this salad, as well, if you and your guests tolerate dairy. Try crumbled feta, goat cheese, gorgonzola, blue cheese or any other soft cheese you prefer. Just a head’s up: the salad will no longer be AIP, Paleo, or vegan if you add cheese.

Switch up the fruit

If you’re having a hard time finding AIP-compliant dried cranberries (they are tough to find!), try adding another winter fruit. Pomegranate, chopped fresh cranberries, kumquat, or clementine orange slices would all work well in this Holiday Kale Salad.

Other recipes to try

Looking for some more easy, tasty, AIP-compliant holiday side dishes to serve? Look no further than these here!

Instant Pot AIP Mashed Potatoes

Maple-Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts (Paleo & AIP)

5-Ingredient Crockpot Apple Crumble (AIP, Paleo)

If you enjoyed this Holiday Kale Salad with Maple-Balsamic Dressing, I would love it if you would leave a star rating and review! And be sure to snap a photo of it and share it with me on Instagram by tagging @hurriedhealthnut and hashtagging it #hurriedhealthnut.

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