There are lots of questions that you might ponder when tempted to make a salad. Some are easy to answer. Should I add fruit? (Answer: no.) Others are more complicated. When should I dress the salad? (Depends on what’s in it.) But the most important of these questions concern the heart of the salad, its green base. Gone are the days of iceberg lettuce and even the unintentionally Obama-endorsed arugula. Today, it’s all about kale.

The hippest of the leafy greens sometimes gets a bad rap. The leathery leaves and thick stalks can be daunting, and its ubiquity has generated a never-ending stream of kale jokes. It’s prime fodder for jokes about Brooklyn parents, vegans, hipsters and so on – and it’s the basis for some crazy diets (both real and fake). Everyone has an opinion; even Andre 3000 has published a recipe for kale chips. But like many kale-centric recipes, that one ruins the leafy green by cooking it. All types of kale – from the tougher curly-leaved version to the more manageable dinosaur kale – can, and should, be enjoyed raw.

This isn’t because cooking destroys kale’s over-hyped nutrients, though it can, but because kale happens to be delicious – which you might not realize if you bake it to a crisp or sauté it till it wilts. It only needs a bit of vinaigrette to reach its full potential.