This salad is so nice, we made it twice! So far, anyway. I see more in our future if we keep getting such great citrus at the grocery store.

I like a couple of things about this recipe. First of all, I am moving further and further away from complicated salad dressings. Most of the time, I’m just about acid (usually citrus juice), excellent quality olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe some honey or yogurt. I think that’s one of my favorite things about this recipe.

Secondly – there’s no meat and no cheese. While delicious, those two things are the easiest way to add calories to a salad. Cheese is what usually gets me. Yeah, there’s still croutons. This salad would probably also be great with a piece of roast chicken. But…. I still feel like it’s an accomplishment to make something I’m so proud of that is *thisclose* to being vegan (I used honey in the dressing. It’s easy to leave out if you want to be vegan!)

Anyway, those might not matter to everybody, but for me they mark a pretty healthy lunch! We made this one night to bring it to our friends’ for dinner, and we liked it so much we made it again for lunch the next day (and we devoured it). It was a great side dish to a roast chicken dinner, and it made a perfect lunch entree, too.

Ingredients

• 3 cups general salad mix (sweeter greens)
• 3 cups kale, shredded and massaged
• 2 Tbsp. mint
• 2 Tbsp. cilantro
• 1 cup chickpeas
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts, minced
• 2 Tbsp. currants or raisins
• 1 cup croutons (homemade if possible)
• 2 whole grapefruits
• 1/4 cup best quality olive oil
• 1/2 to 1 tsp. Bee Local hot honey (sub: 1/2 tsp. honey + 1/2 tsp. sriracha)
• 1 shallot bulb, minced
• black pepper

Instructions

1. Toss the salad mix, kale, mint and cilantro together. Top with chickpeas, walnuts, and currants/raisins.
2. With a chef’s knife, slice the top and bottom off of the grapefruit, so you are left with flat ends where you can see the fruit peeking out. Then, cut the rest of the peel off, so you have a round, completely peeled grapefruit. Use a sharp knife to cut the wedges out of the fruit, without getting any of the pith. This should lead you with clean, beautiful wedges and a hunk of pith. Add the grapefruit wedges to the bowl and juice the remaining pith and peel. This should leave you with about 1/2 cup grapefruit juice from the two fruits.
3. To make the dressing, add the grapefruit juice, olive oil and honey to a deep-ish bowl. Whisk until combined, then season with shallot, black pepper and salt.
4. Toss all of the dressing with the salad, then top with croutons and serve!