Kale Caesar Salad With Salmon Bites

There are SOOOOOO many things that I’m obsessed with about this salad. But, we’ll get to that. We’re going to build this salad in layers: dressing, parm crisps, and salmon. But the end result is a hearty bowl of goodness loaded with flavor, color, and protein.

So, let’s get into it!

Let’s start with the dressing. We’re going to make a lighter version of a homemade Caesar style dressing. Instead of using mayo, we’re going to build the base of our dressing with Greek yogurt. To the yogurt, we’ll add standard Caesar ingredients: lemon, evoo, parmesan, garlic. And to mimic the anchovy that we’d traditionally find in a Caesar dressing, we’ll use Worcestershire sauce instead. It’s a little less intimidating to most people to use Worcestershire sauce instead of tiny canned fish. Plus, it’s a staple ingredient that most people already have on hand. I like to blend the dressing together in a personal blender to smooth out the dressing and break up that cheese. And, our dressing is done!

You can’t have a Caesar salad without parmesan cheese. And, I also REALLY love croutons in a Caesar salad. But, I wanted to keep this lower carb, so I found a compromise…parmesan crisps! These are so easy to make and only take about 10 minutes in the oven. We just need freshly shredded parmesan cheese (you can even use the tub from the deli/cheese section of the grocery store that says “freshly shredded” if you don’t want to shred it yourself) and we need a silicone mat lined baking sheet. We’re going to drop little half tablespoon mounds of cheese onto the baking sheet, spread the cheese into a flat layer, and bake it for a couple mins until the color starts to darken. Once they cool down, they become crispy, crunchy, savory bites of heaven that are perfect for adding a little texture to our salad.

There are lots of stars in this salad, but the real A-lister to me is the salmon bites. Recently, I’ve seen people all over the internet cutting their salmon into cubes before cooking it; and I get it now. I GET IT. By creating more surface area that touches the cooking heat, we get to create a nice crust on all 4 sides of the salmon. So, every single bite has a little crunch to the exterior and that soft almost creamy texture on the interior. It’s AMAZING.

I also pretty much only want salmon air fried these days. The crust to creamy ratio that we just talked about is so so relevant with air frying salmon. Plus, it’s so fast! So, we’ll season the salmon in a little salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika. Toss the spices and fish with a little olive oil. And pop it in the air fryer for about 5 minutes. That’s it! Salmon bites are done!

To assemble the salad, we’re going to start by dressing some chopped kale with about half of our dressing. We want to toss the kale really, really well; then let it sit for about 5 mins. This mimics the concept of massaging the kale, and it helps to tenderize those tough leaves a little bit.

Once the kale has done its thing, load it up with those salmon bites, the parm crisps, and the rest of the dressing. Toss it all together, and it’s time to devour!

Most people think salads taste like rabbit food. But, this one tastes like an indulgent meal if you ask me. The salmon is rich and luscious. The parmesan is crispy and oh so savory. The dressing is bold and creamy. It’s just such a pleasant bite when you toss it all together.

Ok, everyone. This kind of snuck up on me, but it’s about time to transition into holiday recipe mode. If there’s anything specific you want to see, make sure you let me know!

I hope you guys enjoy! So, let’s eat!