I've been dying to try kale chips for quite a while now. Would you believe that none of the stores nearby carry it? (I was mentioning earlier how this area isn't veggie friendly... See!)
But we went to the health food store in Fayetteville yesterday and found some beautiful, crinkly, organic kale and I decided to try making kale chips~ Sadly, I have no pictures of my own to show you.. but that's because they were so good I couldn't wait until they were done to eat them!
***An easy way to make them - put them in the dehydrator in the morning and they'll be ready by dinner! ***
Ingredients:
at least 1 bunch of kale (trust me, you'll want several bunches)
olive oil
sea salt
nutritional yeast
EASY directions:
Wash your kale. I have to say that the stem is quite chewy so either slice down the middle of the stem or simply pull your chips off of the sides and discard the stem entirely. You can break off the leaves in chip sizes - or smaller, if you prefer. I liked the big pieces and the small pieces alike!
Now put the kale into a large bowl. Drizzle your olive oil on top of the leaves. Now get in there and rub the oil onto every single piece of kale. Go ahead, crank up the music and have fun! (I'm usually playing music loudly and dancing in the kitchen when I'm dehydrating. I might as well have fun, right?)
You have two options at this point:
a) put desired amount of nutritional yeast and salt into the bowl of oiled kale leaves. Now continue to rub the yeast around until all the leaves are covered with a little bit of the yeast and salt. (This works, however, you'll end up with some pieces covered in yeast and others not covered.)
b) place the oiled leaves onto your mesh dehydrator trays. Now sprinkle with nutritional yeast and salt.
You don't want the leaves covered in nutritional yeast.. only sprinkled with it.
The only thing left to do is place your kale onto the mesh dehydrator trays. Crinkly kale (which I prefer!) sticks up pretty high so you'll have to skip a row in your dehydrator in between each tray. If you don't, your dried kale chips will get caught on the tray above when you pull them out.
I'm telling you.. make more than one bunch of these kale chips or you won't have any left when they're done! (I seriously had an entire bunch of kale chips for dinner. Yes, dinner!)
Great as a snack, meal or side dish:
Looks very interesting...may have to try these !!!
ReplyDeleteYou will LOVE these, mom. Just cook them on the lowest setting you can in the oven.. but you have a dehydrator, right? I'm going out today to get a few heads of kale just so I can make more.
ReplyDeleteYUM!
At what temperature and how long did you dehydrate for?
ReplyDeleteIn the dehydrator we used approximately 110 degrees for about 24-36 hours. It will depend on a lot of factors -- from the humidity of the climate where you live, how big you cut your kale pieces to how wet they are.
ReplyDeleteIn an oven you can use the lowest setting you have on convection. This will cook faster but it won't be raw. It'll still be delicious, though.
Thanks so much for getting back to me. I'm wondering if I can decrease the cooking time because my dehydrater will do up to 160 degrees. 24 hours is a long time! Even beef jerky only takes me 2-3 hours. :)
ReplyDeleteRaw foods (under approximately 118 degrees) do take a long time, many 24+ hours. You can always increase temps. I personally don't like kale chips that are cooked over 300 degrees because they taste roasted and I think that ruins the flavor of the kale. You can experiment and find what you like. Don't be afraid to try it during the cooking process. You'll be able to easily tell when they are becoming crispy.
ReplyDelete