How much kale is in "a bunch"? I have a garden and wish recipes would use more precise terms, for example, in this case, the weight would be help...

I have made this recipe several times with about 7 oz. of kale

Always a problem with leafy foods- you see so many recipes calling for "a cup of basil leaves", which could be practically any amount. Unfortunately, weights aren't much better as they can vary widely by the moisture content- exterior and interior- which can vary tremendously just in the course of a day. There is usually also part of the leaf which isn't used (leaf stalks mostly) and that can have a lot of effect. I suppose when people say something like "a bunch" they're talking about what's typically sold in stores, but it's certainly awfully vague.

Hi Blue Spruce. I'm sorry I missed your question but glad you got it figured out! I usually use about 8 leaves, minus stems of the large Kale, dinosaur. The curly kale will take a lot- perhaps 12 leaves, I think. I'm going to go back through and try to give a weight measurement and a cup measurement when I get a chance.

Thanks for your comment. Since I get my kale in bunches through the CSA, that is the measurement I used. At my grocery store, it's only sold in bunches. Good to know that kale can be procured in bags like spinach.

Thanks all. I made the recipe with the amount of kale I thought looked right -- but of course forgot to measure or weigh it :) The amounts of many ingredients can be quite elastic and produce good results and I'm often tweaking things. I just like to start with an idea of what he original recipe writer had in mind.

The quiche was delicious, BTW, a definite keeper. I used goat cheese.

I just made this recipe over the weekend. My local Whole Foods was out of kale, so I bought a bag of prepped, torn kale at Trader Joe's. It was either 9 or 10 oz and seemed the perfect amount for the recipe. (The annoying thing was that the many of the fibrous stems were still intact, so the kale still required some prep work.) Enjoy -- it's a lovely, versatile recipe.

I agree that recipe writers should be more thoughtful in specifying amounts for ingredients like kale. I'm guilty as charged, but will try to do better. I've made this recipe, using about 6 8-inch long leaves that were not too skinny, as cavolo nero tends to be. A better way to specify the amount probably would be the quantity of torn leaves. This still requires the cook to use some judgment while at the market selecting the bunch, as that's how it's generally sold. Actually, it would be most helpful to specify both, e.g., "X number of [size/length] leaves, or YY cups, coarsely chopped and loosely packed." (I'm making a mental note here now to put this rule to work in my own recipes.) ;o)

I've found lately that when I buy greens in the supermarket, the bunches vary wildly in size. Sometimes you have to trust your senses, and sometimes you have to pull the frozen spinach out to bulk it up.

Not my recipe, but it depends on the type of kale, curly or cavolo nero (black kale). Consider how much weight is in the stems (in a bunch) as you are probably not going to use those. I'd be more inclined to think in terms of the number of leaves.

I'd say that it's somewhere between 8 and 15 large leaves. Generally I assume "bunch" to be about the amount where you start to feel that you have a large handful of stems (say a diameter of 1.5 to 2 inches), or you get bored picking slugs off your kale (although I guess mostly what I had was spider nests in my chard).