Apparently kale wants to be massaged

[spinbaby]

I’ve had kale salad and liked it, so when I spotted a bag of organic kale at Aldi, I grabbed it. The resulting salad was kind of tough and stiff and chewy. So I googled and discovered that you have to massage kale before making it into a salad. Who knew?

As an added bonus, I now get lots of ads for super foods.

[lapfog_1]

1. after the massage, you can optionally stroke the root rapidly

before chopping the kale into bits to put in the salad.

Giving the kale a brief happy ending before being consumed.

[PoliticAverse]

2. "Don't play with your food." n/t

[tanyev]

3. I microwave kale before making a salad with it.

Just enough to soften it a bit. Of course, if you want a cold salad you have to plan ahead and do it in advance, but it works great for making it easier to eat.

ETA: Now I recall another technique I’ve used is dressing the salad a couple hours in advance. The dressing will soak in and soften up the kale.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Does a rolling pin work? /nt

[PoliticAverse]

6. Use one of those meat tenderizer hammers - you want to make sure it's really dead. n/t

[luvs2sing]

5. It helps a lot!

I usually massage it with a little kosher salt and lemon juice. Kale salad..yummmmm…

[Phentex]

7. Because of Blue Apron, I knew...

they regularly have us massage the kale and the jokes are always flying when this comes up in a recipe.

[trof]

8. And play some soothing sounds like a babbling brook or surf.