Easy Family Dinner Recipe | Kale Caesar Salad with Salmon | Around The Table feat. Kelsey Nixon

We’re so excited to welcome our first special guest into Shea’s kitchen—Kelsey Nixon! In this episode, Kelsey shares her delicious and nutritious Chopped Kale Caesar Salad with Salmon recipe.

Follow along step-by-step as Shea and Kelsey guide you through making this vibrant, nutrient-rich salad featuring wild rice, salmon, kale, romaine lettuce, and a homemade Caesar dressing that takes the flavor to the next level.

Don’t forget to check out Kelsey’s Recipe Club and use code ‘SHEA’ for 15% off: https://bit.ly/SM-recipeclub

Get helpful tips on protein swaps, vegetarian options, and meal prep tricks to make this salad your new go-to for quick weeknight dinners or impressing guests. Plus, learn how to make crispy homemade croutons from stale bread.

Whether you’re looking for a healthy meal or want to expand your salad repertoire, this Chopped Kale Caesar with Salmon is sure to become a family favorite. Print the full recipe from the website to add to your own recipe binder.

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00:00 Introduction
02:30 Kale Ceasar Salad with Salmon Recipe
14:11 Serving & Plating Tips

Welcome to a round the table where we share simple yet elevated everyday Meals one thing I am so excited about is sometimes it’s going to be just me and we’re also going to have a lot of guests on this series and today we have my good friend Kelsey Nixon who is the perfect first guest as I figure out how to have people in my

Kitchen um we’ve known each other since um I don’t want to date us but I know a long time since right after college we lived together um it was like how many of us six girls in a house six girls it was a party it was a a really big old

House and we all had just graduated we moved in and we called it the green house we called it the green house it was painted green like not a pretty green no actually a really bad green really really bad green and then I noticed I drove by and someone repainted

It another really bad green you were living in the basement a a very scary basement it was really scary like I don’t know if those were suitable living condition let me tell you what’s not suit Not only was I living in the basement I knew I wasn’t going to be

There that long I slept on an air mattress in the basement for some reason I was thinking it was a match it was a mattress on the floor but it was an act it was an actual it was a fancy air mattress but it was an air mattress on

The floor okay but to your credit you weren’t really there she was hardly there because at this time Kelsey was on the next Food Network star yes I was I was the my reality show era you’re yes exactly and you were engaged and a lot

There was a lot going there was a lot going on but we still had a lot of fun in that house so after the next Food Network star were you won People’s Choice uh fan favorite fan favorite fan yes yeah didn’t win the show but I won

The fan favorite you our fan favorite you guys are the best uh then you moved on to Food Network and cooking channel and um I met Bobby Fay was an incredible mentor to mine on that show and he ended up executive producing a series for me

That ran for seven seasons and it was this incredible chapter of my life and I did a lot of cooking shows that was that was what I did which is exactly why you are here today so what are we making we are making one of my favorites a chopped

Kale Caesar with salmon I have been on a salad kick lately I’m trying to have like a salad a day right to get those greens and those veggies in but when I want to try and convince my family that salad’s a meal I got to think of ways to

Make it a bit hardier or deconstruct it for my kids and so this has been one of my favorite salads to do during the spring and summer in particular where I feel like I’m getting a really hearty salad but I don’t have to be a short order cook and make other people other

Things one of the ways we can do that is by adding a grain to the salad and that could be anything like quinoa which has got a lot of protein in it it’s gluten-free farro which is really nutty and nice or rice and we’re going to use

Wild rice today which is which is awesome so I’m a big fan of having a rice cooker and not just for Rice you can cook all your grains in it cuz all we have to do is add it and push the button P button yes so let’s open that

Up and add our wild rice and one of my best tips when cooking any sort of grain is to cook it in broth that’s a great way to add extra flavor it’s even some extra protein in there as well and I’m to the point now with grains where I

Almost never cook them in straight water I I love this tip I did not know this it tastes so much better so push the magic button and push the magic button and then I’m going to move this to a different part of the kitchen so we can focus on what’s

Happening Here yes all right so now that our grains are going let’s make some homemade croutons that is how I get my kids to eat salads it’s usually putting something that feels crunchy or crunchy or fun on my salads and so if this will last me all week that’s great then I can

Get my kids to eat more salads if we want the croutons to be crunchy all around we don’t want to overcrowd this pan too much because what roasting essentially is doing is it’s taking all that air circulating around it and making it crunchy from all angles if we

Put too much on there it’s actually going to end up steaming and make them soft this is one of my favorite favorite tools for roasting anything in the kitchen whether I’m making homemade croutons or I’m making roasted vegetables I love having an olive oil spray this is like your greatest gift

Because you told me about this years ago and it makes it so that everything is evenly covered but then I don’t feel like I’m using as much olive oil now that the croutons are evenly coated in oil let’s add some kosher salt and some cracked black pepper and a

Little bit of garlic powder okay typically I’m a fan of fresh garlic but with something like this Crouton having the garlic powder is going to allow it to be more evenly coated and then I love that cracked black pepper on there too and while you are dolling those up with

Some salt and pepper I’m going to chop some fresh parsley because when these come out of the oven one of my favorite things to do with anything I roast in the oven is to finish with a little bit of something fresh so you’re just sprinkling this on you’re not

Tossing not really okay that’s what I like to hear if that if the result is going to be the same and it’s easy like I feel like you have mastered the week night like meal that for families well I just I live and breathe it like you I’ve

Got three young kids and I’m a busy overwhelmed working mom but I like to cook at home like I never I don’t like to go out exactly and so it it is a grind to be ready for dinner every single night I understand the mom that

It’s like don’t make me toss this with my hands then I got to clean my hand like you know what I mean we’re grinding we’re grinding yeah let’s grind the oh yeah oh look at that this is my fancy tool that I love to have there’s a light oh

My gosh okay so these are ready to go in the oven and anytime I roast anything whether I’m roasting something like bread for croutons or vegetables I love finishing with something fresh so I’m going to chop up some parsley some Italian parsley love this is going us

Some color exactly CU we eat with our eyes first and so we got to make it look good and no one knows that more than you like this is work I care about it tasting good and looking good yes yes this is the thing when people think of

Salad they typically think of like Roma or a spring mix or something like that I love to mix an herb tossing in herbs to salad so maybe we’ll have to add a little bit of C our GRE it’s really fresh and nice so let’s pop those in a

375° oven and they’ll cook for about 15 minutes or so but we’ll check on them we’re going to make the dressing and same way with croutons where it’s not that hard to make them from the scratch and they really make a big difference it’s the same with dressing making a

Homemade dressing or becoming a home cook that feels confident making dressings it will change your life like I love to have them in the fridge on hand because it makes everything taste better and I eat way more salads when I have and this is the thing is a dressing

Is not just for a salad taking like a delicious vinegret and drizzling over roasted vegetables is Game Changer so oh that’s our that’s our croutons oh croutons all right so Shay let’s make this dressing so we got a caesar dressing y so Caesar with no anchovies

Which is my preference I know I know it’s like nope no judgment here if you want to add an anchovy you can add an anchovy okay but this is a no anchovy Caesar Club that’s what this is so we’re going to start with the base of mayo you

Could also do Greek yogurt so we’ve got about a third of a cup and I’m referencing completely interchangeable I love that cuz I always have Greek yogurt on hand totally interchangeable and we’re going to add I’m looking at the ingredients I prefer cooking from a printed copy rather than my everything

Out yes we’re going to add some whole grain mustard djon and mustard and I like the whole grain because it’s really pretty it gives those nice like some texture in the dressing and then we’re going to add two cloves of garlic okay we’re going to add some white wine

Vinegar about 2 tbspoon of that we’ve got the mustard the garlic the vinegar this is the secret to a lot of dressings a wacher sauce hardest word in the kitchen to say I’m glad you said that two teaspoons of werer in there we’re going to add 2 tablespoons of lemon

Juice and we’re going to add some salt and pepper in here and then the last thing we’re going to add the two ingredients I swear this is a secret to a great Caesar dressing is adding some grad parm in there so we are swapping the anchovies for the parm we are adding

Parm directly into this dressing more cheese less ancho I yep put it on a t-shirt as far as the oil goes anytime you’re making a homemade dressing you want to put all of the ingredients that are going into that dressing in first and the oil goes in last that’s

Typically the best way to do it um so we’re going to use an avocado oil today I kind of swapped out anything I would use a traditional vegetable oil for for avocado oil a couple of years ago because it’s a little cleaner but it has

A very very mild flavor and so the two oils I use most often in my kitchen are olive oil and avocado oil yeah okay so lid goes on you want to give it a shake sh yep then the last thing I’m going to make you do Shay because I think it’s

Really important when making dressings at home is you got to taste it yeah that’s true dressing in particular like you got to taste it and adjust it might need a little more salt a little more pepper if you like things a little Tangier you might want to add more acid

Like lemon juice or vinegar so give it a taste and see what you think this is delicious you like it mhm yeah I don’t have any it’s great two thumbs up guys two thumbs up two thumbs up for our Caesar dressing okay our dressings ready to go are you ready for the best

Dressing tip of all time yes we need a salad bowl one of the best tips when it comes to dressing is to take your dressing and let’s say whether you’re serving it to your family or it’s a dinner party you add a little in the

Bottom of the bowl and build all of your Greens on top and the reason we’re going to do this is that if you dress a salad you know you’ve been there it gets soggy pretty quickly and so by having it just sitting in the bottom it makes it easy

So you can just toss it together right when you want to serve it when it comes to the greens mix Your Greens you can just go by a spring mix or something like that but by having two types of greens like we’re going to do a shredded

Kale and we’re going to do a real M it’s a nice easy way to elevate the salad and we’re also going to add some of that Italian parsley so Shay why don’t you add this to our bowl and rather than making you measure exactly how much I

Just want you to do about two handfuls of the Roman and two handfuls of the shredded kale so you can add the kale see this versus this this is so much better so much better because we eat with our eyes first it’s so nice to have the variance in color too right

Let’s add some of that parsley too I love that idea you had adding fresh herbs and let’s say you’re cooking dinner and you’re making something that’s got a little thyme in it or parsley have the confidence be like I’m going to add some Sal I love that it

Tastes like a surprise when you’re eating it when you get a little bite of the herb okay so this is good and ready to go what we want to do next is I’m a big proponent of seasoning Your Greens so we ask too much of the dressing to

Season the whole salad so we are going to season our actual greens with a little bit of salt and pepper Cruise HS are done they’ve cooled a little bit let’s add some of that fresh parsley the other thing you could add I don’t think we need to add it but adding a little

Finishing salt like a flaky sea salt is also something you could totally do but isn’t that nice how that just gives it a little pop of color it’s nice those look so delicious our rice came out of the rice cooker this is good to go you could

Serve the rice in the salad warm or cool however you want to do it like our kids I would be deconstructing this for my kids so it would go on one cuz heaven forbid the food touch each other okay I don’t know how things are in your house

But I have a three-year-old that’s very particular about that our dressing is at the bottom there with the greens on top and the last thing we need to do is make our delicious salmon and we want to do this last because when we we want it to

Be warm and that crispy skin on the bottom the first step with our salmon is just simply season it with salt and pepper I think salt and pepper are often times most underutilized seasonings in our kitchen we don’t have to get fancy salt and pepper go a long

Way I’m going to have to get one of these Salmon’s so easy and there’s a couple things we want to remember when you’re cooking salmon you always want to start with the skin side down that’s the way to go it gets it nice and crispy and it helps to cook that salmon evenly

After cooking for about 5 minutes or so you’re going to flip the salmon and cover it and let it go for another 2 minutes the reason I like to cover it at that point is it helps to create a nice warm environment for it to finish cooking evenly so that the center is

Just as done as the exterior as well and that is really it it’s literally one of the easiest proteins you can cook and is the perfect way to complement our Caesar salad it’s ready it’s done now now one thing I like to do anytime I cook any like pan seared fish salmon halet

Whatever is once it comes off the heat just finish with a little squeeze of fresh lemon goes a long way I think sometimes adding too much seasoning to a simple Flay of fish like this just destroys it so salt pepper lemon that’s all you need we are ready to serve

Remember we’ve got our dressing in the bottom of the bowl there so Shay give that a toss and the only thing we have left to do for the Caesar salad is to give it a lot of good shredded parmesan cheese if you really love your guests or

Your family you should really get good parm it smells it smells good right so that’s good to go we can top it with our croutons and now at this point I kind of like to keep it separate cuz you may have someone that just wants to have

Caesar salad and you may have someone that wants the whole thing so and I’m actually realizing this is a really good thing to meal prep too if you wanted to meal prep a lunch you could meal prep these things individually and pull it all together but let’s build this

Delicious Cesar so this kind of gives us the option to have a vegetarian option or pick your protein like exactly salmon is going to be delicious but you might be doing chicken one night so exactly you can interchange exactly yep so let’s build this bowl here where we’re going

To give ourselves a nice base of Caesar salad and when I’m doing salad as like a meal I like to do it in a shallow bowl it feels like a little bit bit more contain then we’re going to top with our salmon right on top this is so pretty

It’s so pretty looks good so this is something that could be a Tuesday night dinner for your family or you could entertain with this you could have people over well and I love that all of this is like easily multipliable like exactly we had extra bread for the

Croutons like just add more greens right yeah like you could build this out delicious chopped salmon Caesar it’s a good recipe like having everyone should know how to make a good Caesar salad at home and so this is a great base and then you could do different combinations

Here maybe you’re going to do quinoa with grilled chicken and add that to your Caesar and maybe you’re going to add some you know cherry tomatoes from the garden or something like that it’s a nice almost like a canvas for building a really beautiful salad you guys this was

So easy cuz Kelsey did all of the work but it was also actually really simple to put together but it’s so beautiful and so that is like what I am all about I want to have those fresh herbs to have all of the yummy flaky sea salt and it

Really really comes together and it’s like looks like you’re showing off the best food is simple food it really is like this ingredient list is not long it’s simple okay so this recipe is going in my binder yes Kelsey designed the most amazing binder have it back here I

Truly do use this every single day because as you mentioned earlier you print everything out I print every single Le recipe out and so I keep all of my recipes for the week up here if they’re not already in the binder and if they’re good enough to make it in the

Binder then they get printed out and put in the binder yes planning for family week night meals is different then just doing a really beautiful Sunday dinner it’s totally different every single night it’s just like oh my gosh I got to do it again I got to make something

Everyone likes and you have figured it out usually it’s only recipe club members that can buy the binder right it can buy the binder but you’re letting we’re opening we are opening it up thank you so much Kelsey and I hope we get family meal after this and I can dive in

Abolutely um thanks for joining us for another episode of around the table and we’ll see you next Time