It IS possible for Kale Chips to be good!  Who Knew??!  I have had many unfortunate taste experiences with Kale Chips.  I know I’m not alone given the number of times I had to say “no really, these are good, just give them a try” while trying to convince my friends to try the ones I made.

My motivation for making Kale Chips was the fact that my Kale plants are OUT OF CONTROL and I don’t know what to do with all the Kale.  I’ve already added it to soups, pastas, omelets and casseroles.  I tried a Kale salad, but I ended up spitting out my bite – maybe I just haven’t found the right dressing – Kale combination. 🙂 So I did go through a few techniques (baking high heat, low heat, food dehydrator) and different seasoning combinations (spicy chipotle, plain salt & pepper, parmesan) before finding a winner.  The seasoning combination that includes parmesan cheese and baking was by far the winner! The food dehydrator was not a pleasant taste experience. (Poor Mr. E!)

The two important tricks to addicting Kale Chips are to make sure that the leaves are evenly coated with the olive oil mixture…

 …and that you don’t pull them out of the oven too soon.  The ones in the picture below aren’t done yet.

If they aren’t at the nice and crispy stage, they don’t taste as good.  This is a little tricky and takes paying attention because if you leave them in too long they burn and that’s not good either!

I tried to capture a good picture of the how the chips look when they are done, but I don’t know how well this came out…

Kale Chips

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

¼ Teaspoon finely ground sea salt (not the coarse ground)

1½ Tablespoon parmesan cheese

Fresh cracked pepper

1 bunch (about 3 cups) Kale, rinsed and leaves pulled off the stem; torn in “chip” size pieces

 

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 325º. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. I used two so that while one was in the oven baking I could be laying out the Kale pieces on the second sheet.

 

In a large bowl, whisk oil, salt, pepper and parmesan.  Add the Kale leaf pieces. I used my hand to mix; making sure each leave was coated.

 

In a single layer spread out the olive oil mixture coated Kale pieces on the parchment lined baking sheet.  Be careful that your oven racks aren’t positioned in the lower half of the oven.  I found that if I placed my baking sheet too close to the bottom of my oven, the chips burned.  Bake 5 minutes and then pull out the sheet and flip each piece over.  Place back in oven and bake another 5-7 minutes.  I found that I would need to pull off some of the chips that were done and then put the rest back in the oven to finish baking.  

 

I know this last step is a bit time consuming and a pain, but I found (with my oven at least) it made a difference and was worth it. 

 

I also experimented with mixing the olive oil with pepper, garlic salt, chili powder and a bit of cayenne and that was really good too!

Enjoy!