In The Wild Heart Kitchen

Autumn Harvest Crunch Salad is tossed with roasted sweet potatoes, apples, fennel, cucumber and garlicky tahini dressing.

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Because Autumn Needs a Salad, too!

For every season there is a salad, and for every salad there is a green of choice. A salad fluff of choice, if you will.

Autumn is my season, the colors, the crisp air, the flavors. When the weather turns chilly, my salads transform into hearty and deep bowls of deliciousness. The fluff, as I call it, changed from crunchy bright lettuces to more intense flavors. I don’t love radicchio…the fluff of choice for many cold weather salads. My fluff of choice is lacinato kale, also known as Tuscan kale, or dinosaur kale.

Many folks out there feel a bit….funky….about kale. However, I am pleased to find, over recent years, kale has made a huge comeback. I love kale in my Shaved Brussel Sprout Salad. If you treat it correctly, kale is the perfect fluff for your salad because it’s filling and satisfying. It’s texture and flavors can stand up to the big bold tastes like apple and sweet potato and hold dressing nicely.

Autumn Harvest Crunch Salad is your new meal salad!

Autumn Harvest Crunch Salad is perfect as a fast dinner, side dish, or a filling lunch. It’s also a delicious salad for your Thanksgiving menu because it hits all the meal must have’s; deep green kale, roasted sweet potato bits, refreshing cucumber and fennel, apple for bright acidity, and protein packed addictively crunchy chickpeas.

Crunchy chickpeas?? Yes. Roasting chickpeas tossed in spices until they are perfectly crunchy is what the salad world has been waiting for. My kids often love to snack on these crunchy bits straight off the sheet pan. If they ever make it to the dinner table, crunchy chickpeas replace the need for croutons and serve as the protein for this one bowl meal. Read more about them in my recipe for Crunchy Roasted Chickpeas.

For the chickpea spice blend, I use New York Shuk ground sumac berries and za’atar, but you can also augment and use what suits your fancy!

My Autimn Harvest Crunch Salad is tossed through one of my favorite tahini dressing (made with Soom tahini). For those that are new to tahini, or as we call it in my house…tachina…its peanut butter’s distant, slightly exotic and earthy cousin. Tahini is creamy and toasty and nutty, perfectly replacing the need for ranch dressing. I add a touch of toasted sesame oil into my tahini dressing to give the sesame flavor that extra rich umami sesame boost. This dressing works well on just about anything imaginable; it pulls double duty as a dipping sauce for your veggies and chicken, I suggest making a double batch and keeping some in your fridge at all times.

Because size really does matter…

As with all my salads like my My Ultimate Summer Salad, Chopped Salad with Feta & Crunchy Chickpeas, and Shaved Brussel Sprout Salad…. your knife cuts really do matter. Thinly slicing vegetables and cutting the kale and lettuce into the thinnest ribbons possible truly impacts the texture of your salad. I firmly believe that salad is all about the texture. Cutting everything thinly allows you to get a beautiful little bite of everything with each mouthful….without making you chew like a rabbit.

Autumn Harvest Crunch Salad is Versitile!

Don’t have sweet potato? Use butternut squash. Don’t have an apple? Use a pear or an Asian Pear (a personal favorite). You can also add sliced grilled chicken or crumble some feta cheese or leave it just it is! The possibilities are endless!

I hope you enjoy this meal worth salad!

Print Recipe

Autumn Harvest Crunch Salad

Autumn Harvest Crunch Salad is tossed with roasted sweet potatoes, apples, fennel, cucumber and garlicky tahini dressing.

Course: Brunch, Lunch, Main Course, Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Keyword: apples, kale, salad, sweet potato, tahini

Servings: 5

Author: wildheartkitchen

Ingredients

For the Crunchy Chickpeas

• 1 can (15.5 0z) chickpeas heavily rinsed, drained, and completely dried in a tea towel
• 1½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon zaatar seasoning
• ¼-½ teaspoon smoked paprika
• large pinch chili powder

For the Sweet Potato Bits:

• 1 large sweet potato about 400 grams, cut into ½-¾ inch bits

For the Tahini Dressing

• 2 teaspoons crushed garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons raw tahini
• 2 teaspoons maple syrup see notes
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• heavy pinch kosher salt

For the Kale Salad

• 4 cups very finely chopped lacinato/dinosaur kale
• 1½ cup baby lettuce cut into ribbons, or more kale instead
• 1 cup thinly sliced cucumber
• 1 apple sliced as thinly as possible
• ½ bulb fennel cut into thin matchsticks
• zaatar seasoning generous sprinkle, for serving
• flakey salt to season as desired

Instructions

For the Crunchy Chickpeas

• Preheat oven to 415 °F. You can use the convection setting if you have it.
• In a colander, thoroughly rinse chickpeas then pour them onto a clean dish towel.
• Gently pat the chickpeas dry with the dishtowel. They must be as dry as possible.
• Line a small cookie sheet (9×13 works great) with parchment paper.
• Pour the dried chickpeas onto the parchment paper in a pile. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and toss the chickpeas to fully coat them.
• Add the cumin, garlic powder, kosher salt, zaatar seasoning, smoked paprika and chili powder and toss the chickpeas to fully and evenly coat them in the spices. Spread the chickpeas out on the cookie sheet in an even layer.
• Put the cookie sheet in the oven for roughly 15-20 minutes until the chickpeas are fully roasted and nice and crunchy. Halfway through baking, give the chickpeas a stir. (Be careful! Sometimes one or two have a tendency to explode while roasting! You may here a few pops here and there.)
• Remove the chickpeas from the oven and allow them to cool for roughly 8-10 minutes before enjoying.

For the Sweet Potato Bits:

• Cut a sweet potato in ½ inch cubes. Toss with extra virgin olive oil and a bit of kosher salt and place on a parchment lines small cookie sheet.
• Roast the sweet potato bits in the oven at the same time as the chickpeas. Roast for 25-35 minutes, until the bits are tender and browned. Remove them from the oven and set aside.

For the Tahini Dressing:

• In a small jar with lid, combine all the dressing ingredients. Secure the lid tightly on the jar and shake really really well until full emulsified. Set Aside.

For the Kale Salad:

• In a large bowl, add the kale, baby lettuce, cucumber, apple, and fennel. Sprinkle in the cooled sweet potato bits and the crunchy chickpeas.
• Pour the dressing over the salad and gently toss for a about 40 seconds, until the dressing has worked it's way into all the crevises of the salad.
• Sprinkle the salad with zaatar and flaky salt, serve immediately, and enjoy!

Notes

Maple syrup: you can add an additional teaspoon to the dressing you like your dressing a little sweeter. 

Make ahead: If you want to prep this salad ahead of time: Prep all the salad ingredients except for the apple (which needs to be sliced before assembling). Store the tahini dressing in a jar in the fridge separately. The chickpeas can be made a little ahead, but may lose their big crunch the longer they sit. Store them separately.