This easy kale and white bean salad is packed with good for you ingredients, is crave-worthy and can be made in advance. Thanks to a creamy tahini dressing, the salad is plant-based, vegan, and super satisfying.
I love this kale and white bean salad, which has been a staple salad recipe for us for years! It’s one of my favorite kale recipes, for sure! The base is kale, which we massage with lemon juice and salt to become a tender, delicious salad base. Then we add white beans, walnuts, and my favorite tahini sauce!
For more hearty salads, see our white bean salad with prosciutto, this seriously good quinoa salad, and our cauliflower chickpea salad. Or, if you are on a white bean kick, you’ll love our easy white bean soup!
Key Ingredients
- Kale: Use your favorite variety of kale in this salad. Since kale is such a hearty green, it can sometimes be too much when served raw. So, I like to do three things. First, remove the ribs, which are pretty tough. Second, massage it with a bit of lemon juice and salt, and third, chop it small.
- White Beans: I love kale with white beans and usually reach for cannellini beans, great northern beans, or chickpeas.
- Walnuts: We keep this salad plant-based and love adding walnuts for extra sticking power. If you don’t have walnuts, substitute other nuts or use seeds like pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds.
- Tahini Sauce: Tahini is amazing in this salad. I use my favorite creamy tahini sauce for the dressing, but you can use this tahini salad dressing. They are both easy to make and taste great! I use homemade tahini to make them, but your favorite store-bought jar works, too!
- Lemon: You’ll use the lemon to massage the kale and squeeze over the salad for an extra burst of fresh flavor.
How to Make Kale and White Bean Salad
I start this salad the same way I start all my kale salads. I massage the kale. Strip the leaves from the ribs/stalks, and then toss them into a bowl with a pinch of salt and lemon juice. Then, use your fingers to massage the salt and acid into the kale leaves. As you do this, you’ll notice that the leaves turn a deeper green and start to feel softer and more tender.
The salt, acid, and massaging helps break the kale down (similar to when you cook it). Adding this step to your kale salad-making repertoire makes you turn hearty (and sometimes hard to digest) raw kale into tender, delicious salad greens.
When the kale is prepped, it’s time to build the salad. Add white beans and walnuts, then pour over the tahini sauce. Once the salad is done, it should last quite a while in your fridge, making it a perfect make-ahead lunch. It will be good for at least a day if not two or three.
This kale and bean salad would go really well next to these garlic flatbread, homemade pita, this easy vegetable soup, our chicken and vegetable soup.
Tahini Kale and White Bean Salad
- PREP
- TOTAL
This easy kale and bean salad is packed with good-for-you ingredients, is crave-worthy, and can be made in advance. Since kale is such a hearty green, it can be hard to digest when served raw. We massage the kale leaves with salt and lemon juice to prevent this. Some of the kale’s structure breaks down by rubbing the salt and lemon into the leaves, making the kale a deeper green color and much more tender than if left raw.
For the dressing, we use our favorite tahini sauce recipe. It’s very simple to make. I also love this tahini salad dressing, which is less creamy but still delicious.
You Will Need
1 bunch kale, about 7 cups leaves
3 ounces walnut halves, about 3/4 cup, lightly toasted
2 (15oz) cans white beans such as chickpeas or cannellini beans, about 3 cups cooked
1/2 cup homemade tahini sauce
Juice of half a lemon
Fine sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
Lemon slices, optional
Directions
1Strip the leaves from hearty kale stems and chop or tear them apart. Rinse the leaves under cool water, then pat or spin them dry.
2Add the kale to a large bowl, and then use your fingers to massage the leaves with 1/4 teaspoon of salt and the juice from half a lemon. After about a minute, the kale will be a deeper green and feel more tender in your fingers.
3If using canned beans, drain and rinse them. Add the beans, walnuts, and most of the tahini sauce to the kale. Toss well, then adjust with more sauce if the salad seems dry — we like to be generous with the dressing.
4Top with freshly ground black pepper and serve with a few lemon slices as a garnish.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- To toast nuts: Add them to a dry skillet over medium heat. Cook, shaking frequently, until fragrant and lightly browned. Watch the nuts carefully, they can go from toasted to burnt quickly.
- Cooked chickpeas: Canned beans are fine, but for homemade, here is our recipe for how to cook chickpeas.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
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So tasty and delicious! My new favorite salad. I added in a chopped apple as well to add some sweetness.
Yummy! I usually use baby kale for salads but this time I wanted the texture of Lacinato kale. Te lemon/salt run really adds flavor. It would help if you provided measurements for the salt and other spices, because I slightly over salted it and I’d rather undersalt. Other than that this came out very well for my first time.
Absolutely fantastic flavours and texture; a meal on its own. Great for left over lunches!
10/10!!!! I didn’t follow everything about this recipe but mostly did for the tahini dressing. I have always wanted to make a tahini dressing and it was SO yummy, I made the best salad I have ever had today with your recipe as the inspiration. People were literally scrapping every last nut crumble or bit of food from the sides of the salad bowls because it was so good. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Great recipe! A tasty and satisfying salad. Served it a hearty rice. Substituted chopped almonds for the walnuts. I’ll go heavier on the lemon next time and use (more) lemon zest.
I have made this twice and it is yummy!! I eat mainly a plant based diet and this is so satisfying! Even my husband and daughter think its a hit!
In the past few years, well since I started blogging, I’ve warmed up to kale. It’s tangy, leafy, and packed with nutrition. This salad looks like the perfect things to bring in my lunch, that is healthy and filling for the summer months.