Steam it, eat it in a salad. We put ours in the Vitamixer with plain yogurt and fruits. Give it away?

Soup. Kale soup is probably too intense, but it's great in lentil soup, thin tomato soup, chowder, chicken soup...

Kale chips (YUM).

If they're fat leaves, like dino kale, rather than thin branching ones, like curly, you could use them for wrappers around any kind of filling, from a rice kind (think stuff grape leaves), to small diced butternut, nuts and dried fruits, to a meat filling, to something with cream cheese (and perhaps seafood) like in a popper or rangoon.

Toast a leaf and chiffonade it for a great topping.

Use as a bloody mary stirrer (if it's skinny enough).

Chop, steam or wilt and mix with sautéed onions for a quiche filling. Or combine with bechamel for a cr&ecircum;pe filling. Or with hoop cheese to go in blintzes. Or substitute feta for convenience.

Chop and add to spaghetti sauce. The secret is to chop. It's icky if it wraps around the fork, but yummy if it's controllable.

Sauté with a lot of chopped vegetables for a veggie lasagna.

Mix into mac and cheese (I don't even steam it first. Just tear it up and mix it into piping hot mac and cheese).

But since it's a whole crate, maybe share with some friends? That's a lot of kale to use up fast unless you were planning to cook and freeze a lot of food. :)

It only keeps for about a week in our refrigerator before it gets funky smelling.

I dehydrate kale leaves, crumble and store in quart jars. You can add dried kale leaves to all kinds of things - soup, casseroles, smoothies...... -Grainlady

do you blanch it before you dehydrate it?

olychick-

I don't blanch, but I do wash it thoroughly and dry it in a salad spinner before placing on the drying trays. I also cut out the rib with kitchen shears (you can use the ribs as a cooked vegetable similar to asparagus). I dehydrate at 125-degrees F. until crispy dry. The link below has more information. You can also use dehydrated kale for kale "chips". If you go to www.nuts.com and look at their kale "goodies" including granola and crackers, you will see a number of potential recipes you can make with dehydrated kale.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: How To Dehydrate Kale

Do a search for kale in the search button and you'll find lots of great ideas. There were a couple of threads about kale in the past couple of months.

One recipe that was shared by Teresa_nc7 was her Zuppa Toscana recipe. I've made it a number of times and it's great to keep in the freezer.

This is the recipe and her words, and it's the only way that I make it, and I've also used ham.

I made this in a Le Creuset oven on top of the stove, browning the onion and garlic in the fat from the sausage. Then I cooked the potatoes and kale in the broth, sausage, onion, and garlic for about 1/2 hr. I then mixed the flour with 1/2 'n 1/2 cream mixed with 2% milk (1/2 cup each) and stirred that into the soup to thicken it for about 15 more cooking time. This was very good!

Zuppa Toscana

1 pound Italian Sausage (spicy) - breakfast link sausage works fine too
4 to 6 Russet Potatoes :bite sized cubes
1 Onion :minced
1/4 cup chopped cooked bacon - fine to leave out
2 tablespoons Garlic, minced
32 ounces Chicken Broth
1/2 bunch Kale (or Swiss Chard), destem & cut into bite sized pieces
1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
2 tablespoon Flour

Brown sausage links in a sauté pan.
Cut links in half lengthwise, then cut slices.
Place sausage, chicken broth, garlic, potatoes and onion in slow cooker.
Add just enough water to cover the vegetables and meat.
Cook in crock pot on high 3-4 hours (low 5-6 hours) until potatoes are soft.
30 minutes before serving:
Mix flour into cream removing lumps.
Add cream and kale to the crock pot, stir.
Cook on high 30 minutes or until broth thickens slightly.
Add salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste.

source: myrecipes.com

Lots of good uses above. I grew a flat-leaf purple variety this past summer. Used some in a lasagna layer. Sliced in thin strips and steamed. Some went into containers frozen for winter soups...
Last season i ended up with a crate of curly and dehydrated most of it in the oven on low heat. As mentioned it needs to go in the oven or dehydrator VERY dry. Any wetness with cook those spots soft. High heat tends to burn. I see many suggesting high heat. Dehydrating is long and slow. And the best flavor outcome. I also take out the center rib and use for juicing.
Chop your leaves into even pieces and place on a sheet pan in a single layer. Can use two trays. Just rotate and trade places every half hour for even drying. Once dry i turn the oven off and leave them in for an extra hour just to be sure no moisture remains. Dehydrating is a good way to deal with high volume. They shrink quite a bit. Great as a snack or jared/bagged for soups. Can be crunched down like dried parsley flakes.
For a snacking batch, i like to rub with a tiny bit of good olive oil or coconut oil before
drying, then sprinkle with sea salt.

I shred it, pack into zip-top bags and freeze. It can be used in soups, stews, anywhere you would use fresh.

Steve

Thanks everyone! I'm not really a soup/stew person, so many of those ideas are out. I do love sautéed spinach - if I blanch and freeze the kale, can it be cooked so that it is a sautéed spinach replacement?

The reason kale gets a bad shake is that if it is overcooked, it gets really bitter. I'd be very careful cooking it too much.

I like it as a green drink. Juiced with along with celery, romaine lettuce, spinach, apples, and lemon juice. A small piece of ginger makes it even better.

You can blanch and freeze it, or simply freeze it as is...well, probably you should wash it. :)

I do both, depending on what I want to use the greens for, and how soon I want to use them.

Blanched, drained well (I even squeeze them a bit,) they freeze well in zip lock bags with all the air pushed out.

As they are, if you freeze them on a cookie sheet, and then do the zip-lock bag thing, (pressing all the air you can, out,) they do quite well, for a shorter time than blanched.

With kale, because it's a bit tougher than say, spinach, or lambs quarters, it does better than those softer greens with the second method than they do.

With either method, the greens will be fine for soups and other dishes, and though they won't be AS good as fresh greens in a saute, they'll still be far better than canned greens, or greens frozen into a block and sold in the grocery store caked with ice. The main thing is to remember that the freezing process already breaks them down to a certain degree, so you want the cooking time to be as brief as possible so you don't end up with slush.

I like it sauteed with olive oil and red pepper flakes.
Juiced as Rob mentioned, with apple or pear, baby spinach, carrot, pineapple, anything I can think of or have in the frig.