Crispy Shredded Halloumi Salad (with kale)
It’s a crispy, golden, cheesy, salty rubble that reminds me of pangrattato – but better, since it’s 100% cheese. 😉 I see so many uses for it in my future – on pastas , soups , roasted veg , hmm, I wonder if it would be too much to top my Mac and Cheese with it….. 🤔😈 And since it stays crispy for days, you can make a ba…
- 225g/ 7.9oz halloumi (, shredded using a box grater (Note 1))
- 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 cup pine nuts ((or slivered almonds))
- 5 tightly packed cups kale leaves (, chopped into ~1 - 1.5cm/ 0.4 - 0.6" pieces (Note 2))
- 1/4 red onion (, very finely sliced then roughly chopped (~1/4 cup), or green onion finely sliced)
- 1/4 cup roughly chopped dill ((or parsley))
- 3 cups cooked white rice ((1 cup uncooked rice grains), or brown rice or quinoa, warm or cooled)
- 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/3 cup extra virgin oil olive oil
- 1 tsp honey
- 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 garlic clove (, finely grated or crushed using garlic crusher)
- 1/4 tsp heaped cooking salt / kosher salt ((halve for table salt, +50% for flakes))
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- Soft boiled egg (, halved (Note 3))
- Dressing - Put the ingredients in a jar and shake well until combined. Set aside to let the garlic flavour meld.
- Toast pine nuts - Heat a large-non stick fry pan over medium heat, no oil. Add the pine nuts and stir regularly for 3 minutes or until they have light brown spots. Remove into a bowl. (Note 4 for oven method)
- Crispy shredded halloumi - Return the pan to the stove and heat the olive oil on high. Cook the shredded halloumi for 5 minutes until most of is golden or deep golden, not brown, lowering the heat to medium high if patches brown too quickly. Transfer into a bowl while you dress the kale. They will crisp up even more as they cool.
- Scrunch and dress kale - Place the kale and red onion in a bowl. Pour over about 2 tablespoons of the Dressing then use your hands to massage it into the kale leaves. Scrunch boldy - kale can take it!
- Toss - Add the rice, dill, most of the pine nuts and remaining Dressing. Toss well.
- Plate up - Spread the salad in a wide shallow serving bowl (for maximum sprinkling surface area!). Cover the surface wtih the crispy halloumi and remaining pine nuts. You could also do this in individual bowls. Serve!
“JAFFLE! Leave the kale! Trust me, mum makes much better things than that!”
Another Spoon Salad In today’s method, I’m turning something pretty virtuous into something exponentially more exciting using the crispy halloumi crumbs – a kale salad. 🙂 It has a surprising amount of kale in it – 5 big leaves – plus rice. I like to chop the kale up into small pieces so it jumbles up nicely with everything else (rice, red onion, pine nuts and the halloumi crumbs) to make a big salad that can be eaten with a spoon where you get a bit of everything in every bite.
Ingredients in Crispy Shredded Halloumi Salad Here’s what you need to make this. The rice fills this out to make it a meal-worthy salad or a handy 2-in-1 side dish (ie veg plus starch in one dish), but you can switch that with another starch of choice if you like, I’ve listed some suggestions below.
To keep the amount of oil in check (I use 1/3 cup – already more than I’d use for a typical salad of this size), I use a few of my go-to tricks: honey, dijon, and apple cider vinegar (explained below). Honey – Just 1 teaspoon of honey to take the sharp edge off the vinegar so I can reduce the usual vinegar-to-oil ratio from 1:3 to 1:2. The dressing only uses 1/4 teaspoon of salt as it gets plenty of salt from the halloumi than jumbles all throughout the salad.
Apple cider vinegar dressing being drizzled over the kale and rice How to make Crispy Shredded Halloumi Salad The halloumi will feel a little more bouncy rather than crispy when it’s hot out of the pan, but it crisps up substantially as it cools. Toast pine nuts – In a large non-stick fry pan (skillet), toast the pine nuts over medium heat for 3 minutes or until they have golden spots.
Add the olive oil, and once hot, scrape the shredded halloumi in and stir to spread them around. Dress and massage kale – Put the kale and red onion in a bowl, pour over about 2 tablespoons of Dressing then use your hands to massage and scrunch the kale, coating all the leaves with the Dressing.
Toss – Add the rice, dill, most of the pine nuts (reserve a few for topping) and remaining Dressing. Sprinkle the surface all over with the crispy halloumi and remaining pine nuts. You can even pop the whole salad in the microwave for a bit (before topping with halloumi, after dressing) – this is what I did.
Just shred halloumi with a box grater and pan fry until golden – it's like pangrattato, but better since it's cheese. 🙂 I use it to shower a salad made with rice, finely chopped kale, pine nuts and red onion in a garlic vinaigrette for a salad designed to be eaten with a spoon, so you get a bit of everything in every mouthful. Add the pine nuts and stir regularly for 3 minutes or until they have light brown spots.
Remove into a bowl. (Note 4 for oven method) Crispy shredded halloumi – Return the pan to the stove and heat the olive oil on high. Cook the shredded halloumi for 5 minutes until most of is golden or deep golden, not brown, lowering the heat to medium high if patches brown too quickly.
Pour over about 2 tablespoons of the Dressing then use your hands to massage it into the kale leaves. Toss – Add the rice, dill, most of the pine nuts and remaining Dressing. To toast the pine nuts in the oven , bake for 5 to 7 minutes at 180C/350F (160C fan-forced), stirring halfway, until there are light golden spots.
