It’s blood orange season! I can’t find them year-round, but I can buy them by the bag at my usual grocery store for the first few months of the year. I’m on bag number three right now, so stay tuned for more blood orange recipes. But today I’m indulging in this gorgeous Winter Retreat Blood Orange Kale Salad. The photos were so beautiful that I was instantly drawn to it. A quick read showed me this salad is packed with healthy things I love, so it wasn’t hard to decide to try it. Plus it has steamed broccoli, and I have never steamed anything. New skill unlocked, I hope!
This Winter Retreat salad is packed with superfoods like kale and blood orange that will nourish you from the inside out. Build immunity and a healthy glow by eating nutrient dense and seasonal foods!
The Ingredients
I needed to buy almost all the ingredients in this lovely salad. All I had was sea salt and oil-cured black olives. The recipe says “pitted olives” but not the type. A close-up of the photos looks like black olives. They’re good, but oil-cured olives are next-level! They have a stronger, saltier flavor that I love, and I had just enough left for this recipe.
So off to the store with high hopes of finding everything in one stop. I almost did it! My go-to grocery store had everything but the lacinato kale. All they had was curly kale. It would probably work, but lacinato kale is milder and tastes better.
I really wanted that lacinato, so I ran home, put away my groceries, and ran up the street to the fancy grocery store. They had it! I bought a bunch and a few other things because that store is pure temptation for me and left with a smile on my face.
The Process
This salad isn’t all raw fruits and vegetables. The broccoli is steamed, so I had to learn how to do that. Other than that, there was lots of slicing and chopping with a little bit of peeling. In other words, familiar things that I was comfortable doing.
Choosing a Steamer Basket
I had some planning to do before I made my Winter Retreat Blood Orange Kale Salad because I didn’t have a steamer basket. When I think of steaming, the classic bamboo basket comes to mind. I had no idea there was such a huge variety of steamer baskets! Besides bamboo, there are silicone, plastic, and metal baskets, and many of them fold up for easy storage.
I have very limited storage space, so I chose a folding metal steamer basket that expands from 5.1″ to 9″. It also has folding feet and a telescoping handle that can be removed for steaming larger items. I love this handy little steamer basket that fits in the palm of my hand when it’s all folded up!
Steaming the Broccoli
Now that I had my steamer basket, it was time to learn how to use it. Finding tips, tutorials, recipes, and videos was easy. The consensus is to steam broccoli for 5 to 6 minutes for that perfect crispy-crunchy texture that I like. And it’s so easy!
- First, I filled a deep saute pan with about 1″ of water and put it onto the stove to boil.
- Next, I trimmed the florets off the broccoli and piled them into the basket.
- Then I added it to the pan once the water was boiling, covered it, and let the broccoli steam for 5-6 minutes.
- I like my broccoli tender with a touch of crispness, and I for exactly that in 6 minutes.
Of course, you can adjust the time to your liking. Longer will result in a softer texture, and shorter will be crispier.
Prepping the Kale
I genuinely like kale, especially kale salads. Kale wasn’t on my radar before this blog. I assumed it was tough and bitter and I wouldn’t like it. Boy, was I wrong! Kale is great in soups, but I love a good kale salad!
A day or two before I planned to make this recipe I saw a kale stemming hack on Instagram. It looked so fast, but these things don’t always work for me. I had to test it!
You need:
- 1 pair of tongs with a push-pull lock at the top (the lock must have a small hole in it)
- paring knife
And you need to:
- Insert one leaf into the hole in the tong’s lock
- Pull it through to remove the leaf from the stem
- Optional: Use the paring knife to trim the stem if it’s too large to fit into the hole
It worked! I had the leaves stemmed faster than I ever could have done by cutting with a knife or tearing with my hands. It left the fine stems at the tips of the leaves in, but they are tender enough to eat.
Next, I chopped the leaves into bite-sized pieces, added them to a mixing bowl with some of the avocado oil, and massaged it for 2 minutes.
Massaging isn’t hard—just grab a bunch in each hand and squeeze hard. Then drop it, pick up more, and repeat. The goal is to break down the fibers and tenderize the kale, so you’ll notice the leaves turn darker green and feel softer as you work.
Finishing Up
The most labor-intensive parts of the prep work were done, but there were still a few ingredients left. I still had to:
- slice the radicchio,
- halve the grape tomatoes,
- peel and slice the blood oranges*,
- and pit and halve the black olives.
*The recipe says to slice and cube 2 blood oranges, but I cubed both and sliced a third blood orange for the garnish.
Once that was done, it was time to assemble this beauty. I used my favorite technique for a beautiful salad presentation. Mixing all the ingredients causes the smaller ingredients to end up on the bottom of the bowl.
- Set aside a few of the small ingredients/toppings
- Add the remaining ingredients to a large mixing bowl
- Add the dressing and seasonings and mix thoroughly
- Transfer the salad to a serving bowl or platter (optional)
- Top the salad with the reserved ingredients and serve
I served my Winter Retreat Blood Orange Kale Salad on a 15-inch platter and topped it with the reserved blood orange slices, black olives, and grape tomatoes.
Timing
This recipe lists a total time of 12 minutes. I went way over that and mine took 32 minutes to prepare. I think a good part of the slow-down was pitting and slicing the olives, halving the grape tomatoes, and peeling the oranges. I’m out of practice in the first two of those things., but I admit I didn’t rush to get this salad put together. I worked at my own pace, though, and I didn’t have any trouble with the steps.
