This High Protein Vegan Kale Salad is deliciously filling and full of nutrients that will fuel your day. You’ll add this one to your weekly list!
When most people think of salads, they don’t have a positive reaction. And yes, that includes vegans. However, this high protein vegan kale salad is so good, we think it may just change your mind.
While there is some cooking involved with this recipe, we think it’s still worth the time and effort. It can be meal prepped so you have a delicious and filling salad all week long if you desire, or you can just make enough for one time.
Another option that we love is prepping all of the cooked food and then you can use that in other meals like tacos, over rice, and more! There are so many possibilities when you think outside of the box.
Why You’ll Love Vegan Kale Salad
Lots of Textures
So many people just put some sort of greens and dressing and call it a salad. With this recipe you’ll have a variety of textures. From the softness of the sweet potatoes to the crispness of the chickpeas and the crunch of the kale and onions if you add them – you’ll get a variety that you’ll mouth will just love.
Lots of Variations
A reason people love salads is because it’s super easy to customize. If you don’t love avocados you can omit them, but you could add tomatoes because you just love them so much. Plus, you can switch up the salad dressing that you use so if tastes like a different meal every single time.
High Protein Vegan Kale Salad Ingredients:
Gather your ingredients!
Below are notes about the ingredients before we get into the full recipe located lower in this post on how to make this vegan kale salad recipe:
- Kale – This powerhouse food should be a staple in your diet. It’s full of vitamins A, C, and K, high in beta-carotene, iron, and more.
- Chickpeas – not only do chickpeas add protein, but they are delicious and crisp up nicely adding a fun and varied texture to this salad
- Sweet Potatoes – Another highly nutritious food full of fiber, beta carotene, vitamin c, potassium and more.
- Avocado – Most salads don’t have healthy fats, but adding avocados is a delicious way to get in those brain boosting healthy fats that we all need in our diets
- Red Onions – this item is not in the photos above, but we added them to the salad after shooting the photos when we were trying again, and think it’s an absolute must!
- Olive Oil – We are using olive oil to roast our sweet potatoes for the salad
- Spices – a combination of spices are used to layer the flavor throughout the dish.
Substitutions and Variations:
- Kale – You can use whatever leafy green you desire. Other highly nutritious leafy greens include spinach, watercress and sprouts.
- Chickpeas – white beans would be an alternative to this recipe; however, they will not crisp up as well as chickpeas do
- Sweet Potatoes – roasted squash would be another alternative to sweet potatoes – like butternut or acorn squash.
- Avocado – If you are looking for a healthy fat alternative – try adding chia seeds, walnuts (or pecans), or make a tahini or nut butter sauce for as your dressing
- Spices – use your favorite seasoning blend to switch things up
Step By Step Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Cut your sweet potatoes into ½ inch circles. Mix all the spices together. Then drizzle the sweet potatoes with the oil and sprinkle the spices across both sides.
You’ll want to bake the sweet potatoes alone for 15-20 minutes.
Then, remove from the oven and add the chickpeas along with a touch more oil. Toss together and then cook for another 15-20 minutes. You want both the sweet potatoes and chickpeas to have a little crispness to them.
Once you have the perfect crispness, remove your tray from the oven.
Add your sweet potatoes and chickpea mixture to your salad along with the kale, avocados, and onions, and any other ingredients you wish.
Frequently Asked Questions:
We recommend cutting the sweet potatoes into ½ inch circles, so that they crispy up nicely. Almost like a chip but still with a slightly soft center. If you don’t care about the crispness, and prefer more softness, you can cube the sweet potatoes.
No, but kale is a leafy green with a higher protein content than other greens. You can use your favorite or add a mix of kale and other greens if you desire.
Kale does not have to be cooked contrary to some. Kale can be eaten raw or cooked. It is considered a superfood, one of the healthiest and most nutrient-dense foods that one can eat. In addition to eaten raw, kale can be steamed, boiled, baked, or sauteed.
Kale can be bitter. Washing it throughly prior to eating it can help remove some of that bitterness.
Baby Kale, Red Kale or Lacinato Kale is the best for salads; however, even curly kale (shown in photos) is delicious. Kale is very fibrous and should be thoroughly washed and massaged with an acidic ingredient like lemon juice to help break down the fiber prior to consuming.
What other vegan salads ideas could I make?
If you are looking for other leafy green based salads, then you should definitely check out our:
Other cold, non-leafy salads you may like are:
- Vegan Broccoli Salad
- Italian Vegan Pasta Salad
- Vegan Green Bean Salad with Feta and Almonds
- Vegan Quinoa Salad
Pin this high protein vegan kale salad for later!
🥳 Get the Full Recipe
High Protein Vegan Kale Salad
Ingredients
- 2 small sweet potatoes, cut into ½ inch circles
- 3 tablespoon olive oil, divided
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 15oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 4-6 large kale leaves, stems removed, chopped, rinsed well, and massaged*
- 2 avocados, diced
- ½ medium red onion, thinly sliced
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425˚F. Into a small bowl, combine all the spices and stir together.
- Add the sliced potatoes to a large baking sheet in a single layer. Drizzle with 2 tablespoon of oil, sprinkle with the spice mix and toss to combine. Return to a single layer and bake for 15 – 20 mins.
- Remove tray from oven and add the chickpeas with additional tablespoon of oil. Toss again and bake for additional 15 – 20 or until the chickpeas and potatoes are crispy.
- When done, toss the potatoes and chickpeas with the kale, avocados, and red onions. Serve with your favorite dressing (poppyseed dressing shown in photos).
Notes
Video
Nutrition
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My nutrition calculations don’t come anywhere near that level of protein. Protein appears to come primarily from chickpeas. I see they are about 15g protein for cup with a can being about 1.5 cups. So about 22 g divided between 2 servings. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Hi Karen! There was a slight discrepancy but not much from the 24g of protein originally listed. I’d love to help you with this.
2 sweet potatoes have about 4g of protein
A can of chickpeas is 21g
Kale has about 8g for the amount listed
Avocados the same – 8g for 2
and then a minuscule amount of protein through the other ingredients
If we add that up we get 42g of protein. This is then divided among 2 bowls of salad for a total of 21g of protein per salad bowl.
Hope this helps
What would be a good dressing recipe for this salad?
Here’s two you can try:
https://makeitdairyfree.com/lemon-vinaigrette-dressing/
https://makeitdairyfree.com/oil-free-balsamic-salad-dressing-recipe/
All salads look really delicious!!! Where did you purchase such crisp romaine in the taco salad recipe?
Thank you! Honestly hard to say since it was so long ago, but we primarily shop at Aldi, Walmart and Shoprite.
I really enjoyed this – the sweet crispness of the sweet potatoes pairs beautifully with the kale!
I’m not use to eating kale raw, but I LOVED it. Works in this capacity. I found it to be very nourishing, and made me feel like I want to be wrapped up in Nature!
Love when that happens!
Loved this, especially the sweet potatoes!
Glad to hear that!
Delicious and beautiful!
thank you!