Food: Kale Chips...the Journey

I have been buying Kale now for a couple of weeks for Elora’s smoothies. The problem is, I purchase a bundle of Kale and before I use it all, the poor things are losing their color and going limp. I started cutting off the ends and putting them on the counter in a cup of water, which seemed to help a lot. However, my feline, fuzzy butt, ninja counter assassins would execute their kill orders on-site.

Then, I found some recipes for Kale chips! Some of the reviews described them as a great substitute for potato chips…Lays, not Ruffles.

Most of the recipes were the same. Kale chips, olive oil, salt, low temp oven.

This will be a work in process, I will share what I did for the first attempt.

·         Preheat oven to 300 degrees

·         Rinse Kale in water.

·         Use paper towels or dry kitchen towel to thoroughly dry the Kale.

·         Remove leaves from the tough stems (like you would to prepare swiss chard)

·         In a large bowl, mix 1 tbsp of olive oil and 1 tbsp of soy sauce

·         Gently mix in the large bowl until the Kale is evenly coated with the oil/soy sauce mixture

·         Arrange the coated Kale on a baking sheet in a single layer (you may have to do this in batches)

·         Sprinkle coarse salt over the Kale

·         Place baking sheets into oven for an intended 30 minutes (mine only took 10)

This is what I learned.

·         I would recommend the use of parchment paper. I had to use a frosting knife to scrape the Kale off the baking sheet.

·         Mine did not look anything like in the pictures of the recipes that I researched. The pictures show dark green, fluffy but crisp leaves. Mine were VERY flat…remember the frosting knife…and velum thin.

·         After putting them into a Tupperware container, they seemed to rehydrate a little. They must have been a little too warm to put in there, but they ended up being a little meatier that way.

·         I think next time I will try a lower temp and check them every 5 minutes to monitor the crispiness and see if I can’t catch them before they go flat…like someone stuck them into a memory book flat…so sad.

I will give an update when I attempt a second batch! The flavor was really good, nice and salty. Definitely crispy! If I can get them to be a touch meatier then I can totally see me using leftovers from Elora’s smoothie needs for snacking!