Hi Everyone! I hope that you guys had an awesome 4th of July holiday yesterday!
It was so gloomy here yesterday, but the beach was still packed with people!
Today’s recipe is something that I am obsessed with: Kale Chips! I eat them all the time and they are always a staple in my pantry, but for some reason, I completely neglected to post a recipe on my blog! I make them so often, that I’m surprised this wasn’t my very first post haha If you don’t like the bitter taste of raw kale, you should give Kale Chips a chance, because they taste totally different when baked!
Kale Chips are really easy to make and are so affordable! I’ll start you guys off with a very basic Kale Chip recipe so you can experiment with your favorite spices and perfect the baking process before I get into some more advanced “cheesy vegan” options in future posts. If you are someone who craves crunchy cracks, these will be your new best friend. This is the perfect guiltless snack made from only 3 ingredients that are so healthy you could eat the entire batch!
It’s time to get to know this leafy green, so all hail the KALE!
- One cup of kale has only 36 calories and zero grams of fat.
- One cup contains nearly 20% of the RDA of dietary fiber, which promotes regular digestion.
- Kale is contains carotenoids and flavonoids, two powerful antioxidants that protect our cells from free radicals.
- Contains anti-inflammatory properties
- Provides a high dose of vitamin K (providing 1327% of the RDA in one cup), which strengthens the composition of our bones.
- Contains over 192% of the RDA of vitamin A in one cup, which is an effective antioxidant, that helps boost immunity, and helps maintains healthy bones and teeth.
- Contains Vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant that helps to lower blood pressure, and ensures a healthy immune system.
Baking kale chips or any vegetables for that matter reduces some of the nutritional properties of the whole food, so it is suggested that you use a dehydrator to preserves the nutrients and enzymes that help with energy and digestion. If you have a dehydrator, you could use this recipe and dehydrate at 115° for 8-12 hours. Don’t be afraid of losing some of the nutritional value during baking if you only have access to an oven… Kale Chips are obviously a much healthier option than greasy potato chips!
Kale Chips
Serves 3-4
1 bunch curly kale
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp ground sea salt or seasoning salt to taste (one of my favorites is Lawry’s)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse and dry kale leaves. Remove kale leaves from stems. Place the leaves in a mixing bowl and drizzle with olive oil. Massage the kale until the olive oil is evenly coated onto the kale. Place kale directly onto a baking sheet and sprinkle with sea salt or seasoning. Don’t worry about perfectly spacing out the Kale chips on the baking sheet, they can slightly overlap because they will shrink dramatically in size. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until crisp, moving the chips around and flipping them half way to ensure that they are evenly baked.
Note: Kale chips shrink after they are baked, so let the leaves be bigger than you would like them to be before baking. Below is a photograph of the kale chips before and after the baking process.
If you want a full nutrient rich dose of kale, try it raw in a green smoothie!
