Today I offer you a delicious lacinato kale green sauce. It’s a super-simple cream that “is made by eye and adjusted to taste.” It has a soft, fresh texture and is perfect for accompanying roasted vegetables, dressing a quick pasta, or simply spreading on a slice of toasted bread. Unlike the kale pesto already on the blog, this version is completely vegan because it contains no cheese. In short, a lighter but equally tasty alternative. You can prepare it in advance and store it in the refrigerator for a few days. Your pasta will thank you; and so will the vegetables: see my fennel, for example.
Other sauce recipes you might be interested in:
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Budget-friendly
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Cooking time: 3 Minutes
- Cooking methods: Boiling
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Fall, Winter
Ingredients for the lacinato kale green sauce
These quantities make about 11 oz of sauce.
- 5 oz lacinato kale (weight after trimming)
- 1.25 oz almonds
- Half clove garlic (optional)
- 1 tablespoon salted capers (optional)
- lemon juice
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- salt
Tools
- 1 Pot
- 1 Slotted spoon
- 1 Blender (I used a Thermomix)
Preparation of the lacinato kale green sauce
Clean the lacinato kale leaves by removing the tough central rib. There’s a little trick to do this very quickly. If you don’t know it and want to learn, click HERE and you’ll find a short video where I show how to do it.
Wash them well under running water, then blanch them in salted water for 3 minutes.
Drain them with a slotted spoon, reserving the cooking water, which will be used to adjust the sauce consistency.
Once slightly cooled, put them in the bowl of a blender (I used a Thermomix). Add the almonds, a pinch of salt, a squeeze of lemon juice, half a peeled clove of garlic and 3 tablespoons (about 40 ml) of oil. If you like, you can also add a tablespoon of desalinated capers. Garlic and capers are truly optional and you can decide whether to include them based on your personal taste. I find them really perfect, though.
Then blend everything, gradually adding a few tablespoons of the reserved kale cooking water until you reach the desired consistency. I proceeded “by eye,” bringing the mixture toward the center of the bowl from time to time. I generally blended at speeds 6 and 7.
Once you’ve blended these basic ingredients, you can adjust the flavor of the sauce to your taste. If the flavor seems a bit flat, simply correct it with a few drops of lemon juice or a pinch more salt. The idea is this: taste and adjust until you find the balance you like best.
When the lacinato kale green sauce is ready, transfer it to a container and keep it in the refrigerator until use. Enjoy! Paola.
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