Kale Chips (Dehydrator Method)

Kale Chips are a gateway drug.

You see, there was a time when my kid wouldn’t have touched kale with 10-foot-pole. Nope. Absolutely would never happen.

But then, I made him some Kale Chips. And they were so good, and he liked them so much, he’d beg me to make them for him. “Mom,” he’d say, “you haven’t made me Kale Chips in a really long time….” with that look. You know the one. The one that all kids have perfected to make their mothers melt into a heap of goo.

And who am I to deny my child Kale Chips, anyway? He might think they are are a delicious treat, but I know that they are a super healthy snack.

Because of his newfound love for Kale Chips, he started to be open to kale consumption in other places. I would sneak some into our morning smoothie, or into our afternoon juice. I’d bake some into a quiche, or include it in a pasta dish. Now, when we eat Caesar salads (which is often), half the greens in there are kale.

Yup, Kale Chips are a healthy, tasty gateway drug. Try them on your kids!

We’ve been making Kale Chips for years in the oven. It’s not hard. But the tricky part about making them in the oven is that it only takes a fraction of time for them to go from “crispy” to “cajun.” Because of how the oven works, the chips have an uneven consistency, sometimes–some areas perfectly crisped, others brown and little too well done.

I recently got a dehydrator (the Salton DH1454 Collapsible Dehydrator, to be precise), and I’m totally psyched. It’s something I’ve been wanting to play with for a long time. Many people on a raw and/or vegan diet use a dehydrator for “cooking” their food, and there isn’t really any substitute in this kind of cooking. I’ll delve more into this world a bit later, but my dehydrator’s inaugural voyage was–what else?–Kale Chips.

The end result is a lot more consistent than using the oven. There are no browned parts, and the colour of the chips is a much brighter green. Michael actually prefers them cooked using this method. The downside is, it takes a lot longer–about 2 hours–as opposed to the 10 minutes they take in the oven.

Making Kale Chips is really simple. Tear up the leaves, wash them,  and dry them. Next up, drizzle with a little olive oil, then dress them with whatever flavours you like. In our house, it’s a sprinkle of garlic, salt, and then a generous sprinkling of nutritional yeast. Michael likes the nutty/cheesy flavour.

They are a fantastic-tasting snack that you don’t have to feel even a tiny bit guilty about eating.

Kale Chips (Vegan, Gluten-Free)

Ingredients:

• 1 head kale (the curly kind)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• pepper
• 1 tbsp nooch (nutritional yeast)

Method:

1. Tear the individual leaves off each of the kale stems. Discard the stems, or save them to use in a stock.
2. Place the kale leaves in a bowl of cold water, and submerge them well. Allow to sit in the water for 5 minutes of so. Drain off the water, then dry the kale by rolling it in a towel, or using a salad spinner.
3. Place the washed and dried kale leaves in a large bowl, and add the olive oil. Massage the oil into the kale with your hands until all the leaves are coated. Now add your seasonings.
4. Place the leaves in a single, uncrowded layer in your dehydrator. Allow to dehydrate at 170 degrees for 2 hours.