Eat your vegetables, your Mom always said. And surely, if you’re vegetables were ever as delicious as this Kale Salad with Roasted Vegetables & Strawberry Basil Pesto is, you’d STILL be eating your vegetables! So today we’re bringing you now only a delicious salad recipe, but also a giveaway of some amazing products from Dexas, a Made in the USA company, that will get you making salads on a daily basis!
Here’s a little more about Dexas from their website: In 1969, Dexas produced its very first cutting board in Dallas, Texas. By 2012, we’ve become the leading designer and largest manufacturer of cutting boards in the U.S. Today, 80% of all the cutting boards we produce – and 100% of our office products – are made right here at home. We’re committed and proud to be ‘Made in the USA’ .
Now, let’s talk about this spinner and dryer. Most salad spinners use centrifugal force only, but the Dexas Turbo Fan Salad Spinner and Dryer also brings in air from the sides of the bowl that then blows and spins the water out. It’s HUGE also – at a 5 quart capacity you could make salad for 10 in under ten minutes! It spins incredibly fast with minimal effort, which is always a plus. I’m thinking of actually bringing this spinner into work – it’d make our jobs faster for sure! And drier greens mean they stay crisp longer.
And to serve this salad? The Dexas Salad Bowl and Dexas Salad Hands made the job prettier and easier. Personally, we don’t own big servings bowls and tend to have to serve salad individually, which is great but at times with guests over, it brings people together to serve dishes family style! The Salad Hands have a great grip and capture even the smallest salad leaves. My Salad Bowl came with a cool clip holder thingy, which was perfect to hold the Strawberry Basil Pesto I’m sharing today!
Yes, you read that correctly. Strawberry Basil Pesto dressed the hearty kale and roasted vegetables perfectly! The berries add a fruity acidic component that the pesto needed; the nuts used were toasted hazelnuts, which added great richness; and nothing better than a touch of parmesan, good olive oil, and a pinch of salt to get your mouth watering. Use this not only as a salad dressing, but on pasta, mashed potatoes, grilled chicken or fish, and even slathered on a sandwich. The possibilities are endless!
Strawberry Basil Pesto
Ingredients
- 5 large strawberries about 1/2 cup chopped
- ½ bunch fresh basil stems removed
- ¼ cup parmesan cheese shredded
- 3 tablespoons hazelnuts toasted
- ¼ to ½ cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Place all the ingredients in your blender or food processor and blend until desired texture is achieved. Remember pesto is meant to be a little chunky, not super smooth.
- Taste to check seasoning and re-season if needed. Store in an airtight jar in the refrigerator.
My favorite leafy green is romaine lettuce.
That is a tough choice but my go to green in salads is spinach!
I love baby spinach and spring mix!
why does everyone always ask me to choose? 😉 My favorite greens are spinach and arugula, can’t narrow it down more than that because it’s really a hot competition as I lovelovelove my leafy greens!
I love romaine and spinach!
I like red leaf lettuce, preferably mixed with some green leaf lettuce. Simple, but good.
I love strawberries and to have it in salad? Oh my gosh, be still my heart. Love lettuce and how you fixed this up. Make me a bowl, please. Coming over now. Thanks for sharing, Nelly!
Hurray for salad spinners!! I got one for the first time a couple months ago and now I am OBSESSED with it. It’s so nice to have salads where the dressing doesn’t run right off the greens because they’re still all wet. And I love the idea of strawberry basil pesto! I have had a strawberry basil jam before which was delicious, throwing some cheese and nuts into the mix sounds like my kind of spread 🙂
Arugula, I now feel that I just can’t live without it. So I grow it, lots of it. It grows and self seeds like weeds, ha!