Warm Collard Greens Salad with Toasted Coconut & Burst Tomatoes
I stopped dead in my tracks when a recipe popped up in my NYT cooking email for a kale salad with coconut, tomatoes and miso dressing. I was completely intrigued and luckily had everything on hand. However, I’m a little tired of kale salads and wanted to utilize collard greens (which our CSA members are getting this week). This was such a lovely and unique salad and I love serving my collard greens this way. The tomatoes melt in your mouth, the coconut brings a sweet warmth to the dish, and the dressing is delicious. This dressing is thicker than most dressing I make and is best drizzled over the salad after it’s plated. I think you’ll find many uses for this dressing too. It’s really versatile and I can imagine it being used as sauce for dipping meat, roasted veggies or even crackers. If you are in a salad rut and need something new and interesting, this is the recipe for you!
I hope you all give this a whirl. It’s a great excuse to grab a big bunch of collard greens at your local farmers market this weekend!
Warm Collard Greens Salad with Toasted Coconut & Burst Tomatoes
Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 30 minutes Serves: 2-4
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
- 4 Tablespoons olive oil, divided + additional as needed
- salt and pepper
- 2 large limes, washed
- 1 large bunch of collard greens, tough stems removed and leaves sliced into very thin ribbons (see note)
- 1/4 cup unsweetened dried coconut flakes
- 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 Tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 Tablespoon white miso paste
- 1 Tablespoon tahini
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped
- 2 scallions, finely chopped, white and pale green parts only
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 375F. Toss the cherry tomatoes with 1 Tablespoon of the olive, salt, pepper and the zest of both limes and the juice from one of them. Place the tomatoes on a baking sheet and roast in the oven until they burst and begin to shrivel a bit. About 25 minutes.
- Toss the thinly sliced collard green leaves and coconut shavings with the soy sauce and 1 Tablespoon olive oil. Use your hands to lightly rub it into the collard leaves. Roast these in the oven on a baking try next to or below the tomatoes for about 5-10 minutes or until the collard greens begin to crisp up a bit at their edges.
- Prepare the dressing by combining the ginger, miso, tahini, honey and jalapeño pepper, and scallions with 2 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil and the juice of 1 lime in the bowl of a food processor (or use an immersion blender) and blend until smooth. Taste for seasonings and adjust as needed. If the dressing is way too thick you may add 1-2 tablespoons of water. But this dressing is meant to be on the thicker side.
- Put the tomatoes, collard greens and coconut in a large bowl and toss well. Drizzle with the dressing and serve warm.
Notes
*This recipe is inspired by the NYT *I find it easiest to slice the collard greens by stacking the leaves and rolling them like a cigar and then very thinly slicing them into long ribbons
Loved this. We topped with baked salmon to make it a meal. Word to my fellow shortcut takers out there: grating the ginger really is necessary. I tried leaving it in chunks since I was blending the dressing in my vitamix but sadly they just got stuck below the blade and I had to fish them out and mince them.
THIS SALAD IS SO GOOD, GIRL!!!!
Do you think this would work well with swiss chard? Would you make any adjustments?
Absolutely. And no adjustments necessary. Enjoy!