Hearty, verdant kale is a leafy green we can never get enough of, and we've gathered many ways you can enjoy the vegetable, especially in the winter. There are delicious salads among our kale recipes, of course, from a crunchy root vegetable salad from chef Marcus Samuelsson to a kale Caesar salad with light and crispy fried chickpeas from Justin Chapple. You can also turn kale into pesto, fold it into macaroni and cheese, and stuff pasta shells with it. Here are some of our favorite ways to use kale in soups, salads, sides, pastas, and main dishes.
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Sautéed Kale with Garlic and Olive Oil
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Sautéed with garlic and olive oil, this quick, easy, and versatile kale side dish gets a slight kick of flavor from red chile flakes.
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Kale Salad with Cranberries, Almonds, and Goat Cheese
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This winter kale salad dresses up the hearty greens with toasted almonds, dried cranberries, goat cheese, and a citrus-Dijon vinaigrette.
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Baby Kale Stir-Fried with Oyster Sauce
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"This recipe is my supermarket take on stir-fried water spinach, a go-to vegetable for everyday Viet meals," Andrea Nguyen writes. "Prewashed greens don't release much liquid, which can dilute flavors and turn a stir-fry sizzle into a fizzle."
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Kale-Basil Pesto
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This fall-forward pesto bolsters traditional basil with Lacinato kale for extra heartiness. Winemaker Clare Carver recommends choosing a mild, smooth extra-virgin olive oil here for a buttery richness that complements the toasted walnuts and balances the fresh garlic.
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Sausage, Kale, and Potato Skillet Supper
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"The brilliant thing about this recipe is that you can cook it all in one skillet," Klancy Miller writes. "The key is adding each ingredient at the right time so that everything cooks without burning."
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Sheet Pan Baked Chicken, Feta, Tomatoes, and Kale with Pasta
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This whole dish comes together in under an hour as the chicken, cheese, and aromatics bake in the oven while the pasta and kale quickly cook on the stove.
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Buttermilk Macaroni and Cheese with Baby Kale
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A quick sauté renders baby kale leaves perfectly tender, allowing them to almost melt into the buttermilk-enriched béchamel in chef and cookbook author Alexander Smalls' riff on mac and cheese. For a smooth sauce, make sure all of the dairy is at room temperature.
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Chickpeas and Kale in Spicy Pomodoro Sauce
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Chef Missy Robbins of Brooklyn's Lilia restaurant swaps chickpeas for pasta in her riff on spicy pomodoro. She finishes the dish with a shower of fresh herbs and salty pecorino cheese.
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Chicken Tortellini Soup with Kale
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Fresh ingredients team up with store-bought shortcuts to get this comforting dinner on the table in just over 30 minutes.
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Kale-Artichoke Stuffed Shells
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Tender kale is the base for this filling of artichoke hearts, creamy cannellini beans, and spreadable cheese, stuffing pasta shells that top marinara mixed with mildly hot Calabrian chiles and earthy, sweet fennel seeds.
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Greek Kale Salad with Fried Halloumi
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Crisp and tender pan-fried Halloumi cheese is the star of this wintry take on a Greek salad. Finely chopped kale holds up a creamy, spicy yogurt-based dressing that gets a kick of piquancy from minced garlic and crushed red pepper.
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Kale-and-Corn Pakoras
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A combination of chickpea and rice flours yields a batter that makes these pakoras fry up light, lacy, and extra crunchy. Sweet summer corn and peppers join with hearty kale to give these vegetarian fritters extra heft.
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Roasted Butternut Squash with Chorizo-Spiced Kale
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With its earthy sweetness and dense texture, butternut squash makes a hearty vegetable steak. At Chaval in Portland, Maine, chef Damian Sansonetti highlights its complexity with his chorizo spice mix. He blooms the blend of cumin, Pimentón, and coriander in oil to release its aroma, which provides a smoky foundation for the kale that tops this shoulder-season dish.
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Coulibiac of Salmon with Pickled Beets and Kale
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This modern update on the classic swaps labor-intensive brioche with store-bought phyllo, which bakes into an ethereally crisp parcel that encases lemony rice, mustard-brushed salmon, pickled beets, and garlicky kale. Each slice reveals clean, vibrant layers, packed with bold flavors.
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Stuffed Kale with Bulgur Tabbouleh and Lime Yogurt Dip
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In his clever version of stuffed grape leaves, chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten uses tender kale as the wrapper, and stuffs them with a tabbouleh of bulgur, cucumber, mint, and sour cherry.
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Kale Caesar with Fried Chickpeas
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This tangy Caesar salad from F&W's Justin Chapple is topped with light, airy, and super-crunchy pan-fried chickpeas.
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Sunchoke-Kale Hash with Farro
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This comforting winter recipe from 2009 F&W Best New Chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, of Animal and Son of a Gun in Los Angeles, combines crispy sunchokes, silky oyster mushrooms, tender kale, and chewy farro.
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Pork-and-Kale Soup with Sizzling Puffed Rice
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"I love food that makes noise," says chef Edward Lee. When F&W challenged the Top Chef Season 9 contestant to make a fast dish with pork, kale, and white wine, he created a deeply flavorful soup, then added crumbled crispy rice cakes that crackle as they hit the broth.
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Creamed Kale
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Shallots and nutmeg help enhance the flavor in this 15-minute creamed kale recipe.
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Kale-and-Shiitake Fried Rice
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This comforting, vegetable-packed rice is infused with ginger. It's best made with day-old rice to absorb all the flavorings.
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Spicy Kale-Pistachio Dip
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This spicy vegetable dip comes together in just 20 minutes and is also great as a sauce on seafood or meat.
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Crispy Ricotta-Kale Tacos
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Make these simple, savory snacks, served with tomatillo and pistachio salsa, in 45 minutes.
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Chow Fun with Roast Pork and Kale-Tomato Salad
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Chow fun noodles are the base for this unconventional dish, from chef Sheldon Simeon, that's topped with roast pork and a tangy kale salad and served with a buttery broth.
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Squash-and-Kale Toasts
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Chef Steven Satterfield of Miller Union in Atlanta is a huge fan of kale — especially when it's combined with sweet roasted squash. Look for Tuscan kale (also called Lacinato or Dinosaur kale) when possible; it's tender and tasty. You can eat these toasts as an afternoon snack or serve them to guests during cocktail hour.
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Kale Rice Bowl
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In this simple rice bowl, Kay Chun combines pork and kale with an abundance of fresh herbs for a dish that's both hearty and delightfully fresh-tasting.
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Kale Salad with Root Vegetables and Apple
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This refreshing, super-healthy salad is one of chef Marcus Samuelsson's favorite ways to showcase kale; massaging the leaves with vinegar, salt, and olive oil makes them tender and sweet.
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Kimchi-and-Kale Fried Rice
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When chef Rachel Yang finishes a long shift at her Seattle restaurant Joule, this fried rice is her go-to quick snack. It's a great use for all of that leftover takeout rice and relies mostly on pantry staples, as long as you have gochujang, a Korean chile paste, in your pantry.
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Ribollita
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Chef Adam Leonti's ribollita recipe is packed with Yukon Gold Potatoes, cannellini beans, kale, and more.
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Sweet Brown Rice Risotto with Kale and Cremini
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"Despite its name, sweet brown rice isn't sweet," says chef Marco Canora of Hearth in New York City. Instead, this short-grain glutinous rice resembles whole-grain sushi rice. Here, Canora uses it to make a hearty vegetarian risotto packed with cremini mushrooms, Tuscan kale, onion, thyme, and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
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Cabbage-and-Kale Soup with Farro
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"I love a really flavorful pot of greens," says chef Melissa Perello. For this kale-and-cabbage soup, she uses just a little bit of pancetta and a Parmesan-cheese rind to give the broth a rich flavor. "It's definitely the kind of dish that tastes even better the next day," she says. There's nothing better than a dish that keeps on giving.
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