Level up your weeknight kale lentil salad with some sausage. It's that easy.

Calories 607

Dressing: Garlic & dijon mustard vinaigrette
Lentils: cooked with bay leaves
Sausage: kielbasa is amazing with the mustard dressing, but any of your favorites will work
Ready in 20 minutes

Recipe

Kale lentil salad with sausage, as a full dinner

Kale and lentil salad with sausage

Veronica T

Prep Time 5

Total Time 20

Calories 607

Servings salads

Ingredients

Salad

¾ cup dried brown lentils*
3 cups chicken broth for cooking lentils
2 bay leaves
2 sausages
6 oz kale chopped

Dressing

2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoon dijon mustard or stone ground
1.5 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Salt to taste
3 tablespoon olive oil
1 pinch red pepper

Instructions

Cook Lentils

Bring chicken broth and bay leaves to a boil and cook lentils according to the package. Typically bring to a boil then simmer for 15-20 minutes, until tender. (The chicken broth flavors them - bouillon cubes work too).

Make Dressing

While the lentils cook, make the dressing.
Mince garlic (or grate over a microplane). Add garlic to a bowl with mustard, and red wine vinegar. Add some of the olive oil and whisk, continue to whisk in a little more at a time. (Or add everything to a jar and shake).
Pour half of the dressing on the kale leaves and massage the leaves for 30 seconds to soften them up. Let sit until lentils are ready.

Heat Sausage & Serve

After making the dressing, you should have about 5-10 minutes left on the lentils. Cut the sausage into slices and brown in a hot pan for 3 minutes per side to crisp up the edges.
When everything is ready, add the lentils and couscous to the kale and pour over remaining dressing. Mix well. Add sausage and serve.

Notes

Types of lentils:

Brown lentils are tender and hold their shape when cooked
Green lentils also hold their shape and are still firm when cooked
Red and yellow lentils will turn to mush, don't use them

Nutrition is calculated using kielbasa sausage. Chicken sausage will cut out 100 calories per serving.

Nutrition

Making this recipe?Let me know how it was! (which helps anyone else who drops by!)

Kale is best for warm salads

Kale is tough and sturdy, holding up to the warm sausage and lentils without wilting.

Delicate salad greens, like arugula and spinach will wilt, creating a texture similar to creamed spinach. Sturdier lettuces like romaine or even cabbage are decent, but don't hold onto dressing as well as kale does.

Massage kale to make it more tender

When working with kale, especially lacinato (dinosaur) kale, you'll want to massage the leaves to make them more tender and less chewy.

The trick to breaking down more of the tough cell walls is to massage the leaves with dressing for 30 seconds, physically breaking down the cell walls.

Let the kale sit for another 10 minutes while the lentils cook so the acid in the dressing can continue to tenderize the leaves.

Both the massaging action and the lemon juice in the dressing helps break down the fibrous leaves, making them much more pleasant to chew.

Which types of lentils work best

Brown best for this salad because they are tender, but don't fall apart when cooked (unless you severely overcook them).

However, several other types of lentils are great options, depending on your preferences. Don't use red or yellow lentils though, they will turn to mush.

This chart compares the characteristics of different types of lentils.

Type	Flavor	Texture
Brown	Mild, nutty	Tender, hold shape
Green	Slightly peppery	Firm, hold shape
Puy (French)	Complex, nutty	Very firm, hold shape
Red	Mild, slightly sweet	Soft, breaks down
Yellow	Mild, buttery	Soft, breaks down
Black (Beluga)	Rich, earthy	Firm, hold shape

Fresh raw kale, cooked brown lentils, and sausage on a salad

Kielbasa vs chicken sausage

Pick your favorite sausage - it's that easy.

But I still have a few tips, depending on which direction you want to take your kale lentil salad:

Pub flavor: kielbasa sausage and mustard dressing veer toward pub sausage flavors. (200 calories)
Light & healthy: your favorite chicken sausage (110 calories per link)
Spicy: andouille sausage (150 calories)
If you have time: a good bratwurst (200 calories per link) is a classic pairing with the mustard dressing. But first you have to cook it (as opposed to the other pre-cooked type of sausages)

Nutrition for kale lentil salad with 607 calories, 29 grams of protein, and 18 grams of fiber.

How to make it healthier (or not)

This kale lentil salad recipe is written to be an entire dinner, so it's intentionally filling and packed full of nutrients.

29 grams of protein, half of which comes from lentils
19 grams of fiber, almost all of it from lentils
Vitamin-rich kale packs in a good amount of your daily values

Adjust the sausage for calories and fat

With the kielbasa sausage, it adds up to 607 calories. That can be adjusted down if you're interested.

Chicken sausage will cut 100 calories out of the total
Use half the sausage to cut out 100 calories (for kielbasa)

Lentils add just as much protein as 1 sausage, so cutting down the amount of sausage won't be a problem for your daily protein goals.

A bowl of garlic mustard salad dressing with red pepper flakes.

Adjust the dressing

The garlic-mustard dressing is about 200 calories.

The majority of that is from olive oil and it sticks to the raw kale leaves extremely well.

Alternatively, you can use this roasted onion & garlic dressing, which is 85 calories for the same serving size. And it would also be phenomenal as it soaks into the kale and lentils.

If you used half of a chicken sausage and the roasted onion dressing alternative, you'd bring the calories down to 406 and it would still be filling. Less fat would make it less filling, but the lentils will help you feel satiated.