How to Cook Kale (2 Ways!) (2024)

FAQs

What is the most delicious way to eat kale? ›

Steaming kale is a wonderfully gentle ​way to handle this tough green. Cut the kale as you want to serve it, set it in a colander or steamer over a pot of boiling shallow water, cover and cook until the kale is tender (about 5 to 10 minutes).

Kale is great as a side dish or in a smoothie, and you can't go wrong with steaming it. Steamed kale retains important nutrients, such as calcium, that are important for you to have. Luckily, steaming kale can be as easy as chopping it and putting it in a steamer or microwave.

Chrissy adds: “Kale can be eaten raw or cooked but do make sure you only cook kale lightly (lightly steam or stir-fry) to minimise loss of water-soluble nutrients.”

Massaging Kale – massaging kale with a little oil and/or lemon juice for just a few minutes makes it more tender and easier to chew. Plus, it adds an extra boost of flavor.

Raw kale can be hard to digest. Kale's fibrous cell walls may prevent your body from absorbing nutrients, but cooking kale can reduce its antioxidant content. Nutrition experts say steaming kale is a good way to make it easier to digest while preserving most of the nutrients.

Kale leaves can also be massaged with a little olive oil. Adding salt and squeezing lemon make a big difference by removing bitterness.

You can definitely eat kale stems! Sure, they're not the tastiest. Or easiest to eat. But, they're packed with nutrition and can add some valuable green to a stir fry, grain bowl, or frittata.

Don't boil kale, is releases more of the strong smelling sulfur compounds and makes the leaves slimy while damaging most of the nutrients. To preserve nutrients, don't cook kale for more than 10 minutes over high heat (in a skillet or oven at 400°F).

For whole leaves, rinse, then put them in a pan without shaking the water off, cover, then cook for up to 2 minutes, until wilted. Drain thoroughly. For chopped or shredded leaves, put in a pan of water 1cm deep with a pinch of salt, then bring to the boil and simmer for up to 5 minutes, until wilted.

Why do we put kale in boiling water for one minute? ›

Blanching kale allows it to hold onto its color, as well as many of its nutrients. Kale that has been boiled too long appears wilted and gray. The nutrients leach into the water, which you can use to make a stock.

While raw kale may boast the highest nutrient content, the study found that steaming retained the most antioxidants and minerals, compared with other cooking methods ( 7 ).

Kale contains phytochemicals, sulfur-containing indolic glucosinolates, and aliphatic glucosinolates that have demonstrated anti-inflammatory activity [18].

Instead, after you've washed the leaves, leave them damp. The water that clings to the leaves will create steam when you toss them in the hot skillet. As the kale cooks, you'll cover the skillet for a few minutes; that steam will help wilt and break down the kale perfectly.

Some foods can help lower blood pressure naturally, and kale is one of them. Because it contains high levels of magnesium, calcium, and potassium, along with other vitamins and fiber all working together, kale can help lower blood pressure.

Russian Kale Is the Best Type of Kale to Cook

The frilly leaves tend to be softer and a bit sweet than other varieties. While red Russian kale tends to branch out, I prefer the leaves when they're smaller, before they develop a slight peppery taste with maturity—a good reason to harvest sooner rather than later.

Bitter greens are leafy greens or vegetables that have an intense bitter flavor profile. They include kale, mustard greens, collards, turnip greens, broccoli rabe, radicchio, chicory, and endive. The bitterness comes from chemical compounds called glucosinolates that can be found in the Brassica family.

But if you think the taste is not at all appetizing, you can simply make a nice salad dressing that will cover up the bland taste of kale. To keep it simple, some lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper should make a good seasoning to raw kale.