After making Portuguese Kale Soup, I had a few woody kale stems left. Toss them? No way – they’re the perfect complement to salmon in pasta!
This is another quick and easy one bowl meal: we had already cooked the wild-caught salmon, so that’s a big timesaver…plus, we now had cooked salmon just waiting to grace a variety of dishes!
To make this dish, slice (the thinner you slice them, the more quickly they’ll cook) and sauté the kale stems, sliced cremini mushrooms, and chopped onions in butter. Add a little flour and heavy cream to create a rich, mushroomy sauce, then add the (cooked) salmon.
We enjoyed this on organic brown rice penne pasta, but I think it would also be great on veggie noodles, shirataki noodles, spaghetti squash “noodles”, cauliflower “rice”, or your favorite pasta. Those unassuming kale stems add a verdantly juicy and crispy element to this dish. If you’re a texture person – like I am – you’ll appreciate the kale’s crunchiness.
So, the next time a recipe calls for using just the leafy parts of greens like kale, save those ribs/stems/cores and make something delicious – like pasta – with them!
This dish was inspired by Sherri Brooks Vinton’s cookbook, “Eat It Up! 150 Recipes to Use Every Bit and Enjoy Every Bite of the Food You Buy”. Lots of creative ideas in there to help you reduce (or even eliminate) food waste!