How To Make Kale Chips

Hi everyone!  Now I know I'm literally years late on the kale-chip-bandwagon, but here's a very, very, very easy recipe (below) on how to make these delicious, irresistible, crunchy power greens.  There are tons of reasons why kale is awesome; according to MindBodyGreen, kale is low in calorie, high in calcium, fiber, iron, Vitamin A, K, and C, and has 0 fat!  It also has a ton of antioxidants and works like a "detox food" (aka regulates your digestive business), and also serves as an anti-inflammatory food and it's awesome when it comes to cardiovascular support.  Not to mention when massaged with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt, kale chips become the healthy (and equally addicting) version of our dear old buddy, Mr. Potato Chip.

Easy Kale Chips

1. Preheat your oven to 325°F.  Get out your kale! The easy way to go is to buy your kale already cut, chopped, and cleaned.

2. Line a baking sheet with foil - this helps with the clean up - and take out a small handful (roughly 1 C) of kale onto the foil.

3. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil over the kale.  You can also use coconut oil if you'd prefer.

4. Massage the oil into allllll those nooks and crannies in between the leaves of the kale to ensure even cooking.  (Yes your hands will get super oily, but olive/coconut oil are good moisturizers for your skin!)

5. Sprinkle sea salt sparingly onto your oiled up kale; seriously less is more.  You don't need to physically sea the salt piling up on the kale chips.

6. (Optional) I wanted to try out Mrs. Dash's Lemon Pepper seasoning on my kale chips today.  Yes, I realize Mrs. Dash is salt-free, so putting the sea salt first completely ruined the point of it being a healthy seasoning alternative - but I had it in my pantry and decided to try it.

7. Make sure your kale chips are in a single layer and not bunched up on top of each other.  Pop them into the oven for 12 minutes.  Yes, 12 - not 11 and not 13, but twelve minutes.

8. After 12 minutes, take your lovely baked kale chips out of the oven.  As you can see they do shrink down quite a bit!

9. Put the chips into a bowl, toss the foil out, and enjoy!  I dare you to just eat one and walk away (it's impossible!)

*Storage note: 1 cup of kale can easily fill up a small bowl (see the first pic) so I wouldn't really recommend making a lot of batches.  If you do make a lot of batches, don't be surprised if the kale gets soggy or wilted overnight, even if you keep it in a container, and it'll definitely depend on the humidity of where you live.  BUT on the bright side, just pop them back into the oven the following day again at 325°F for about 6 minutes and they'll be back to their fresh, crispy selves.

Oh and if you were wondering how the kale chips tasted with the lemon pepper seasoning, I would give it 3 out of 5 stars (boo!).  I think the other seasonings within the lemon pepper shaker actually burned in the cooking process so a lot of my kale chips ended up tasting charred and just plain gross.  I think I'll stick to plain old sea salt or garlic salt next time around.

If you try out this recipe please let me know!  I'd love to know if it worked for you or if you made your own little adjustments to it!  Don't forget you can follow me through bloglovin by clicking on the Eiffel Tower picture to the right!

Enjoy your kale chips!