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.