Talk to me about Kale Chips

Just read Dagny’s post on making Kale Chips a few minutes ago, (BTW – enjoyed your other posts.)

I never heard of Kale Chips before but I would love to find a healthy alternative snack food. Do these things just disintegrate when you touch them? I can’t imagine a dehydrated piece of kale having any body to it. How do you eat them? Can you dip them in anything? How do you make them? I’m intrigued.

I love kale chips! I prefer curly kale, but the “dinosaur” kale works okay, too. I destem the kale and tear the leaves into managable pieces. (some folks leave the whole thing intact, and use the stem as a “handle” to hold it after dehydrating).

for each bunch of kale, I mix together 3T oil and 1T cider vinegar and about 1/4 – 1/2 tsp sea salt (depending on my salt craving at the time). I prepare this mixture in my magic bullet—takes just seconds. Pour this over the prepared kale pieces in the bowl. Toss repeatedly until all the pieces are coated on both sides.

Put the pieces on mesh dehydrator tray(s). I dehydrate at about 100, it takes about 4 hours for perfect chips. I used to very carefully lay out the pieces, but now I just dump them on, spread them out as best I can, and it works fine. I have a 9-tray excalibur. The chips are a bit bulky, so I take out every other tray for the drying process. Since I don’t go crazy tryng to space them out perfectly, I can do a couple decent sized bunches of kale at a time.

The chips aren’t really dipp-able, cause they are fragile. You can scoop them into a bowl for serving, Too much jostling them about does cause them to crumble some. They are a great snack—best eaten directly out of the dehydrator!! They don’t keep well, but that’s okay because you probably won’t have any left over.

I’ve learned I can’t leave a bowl of kale chips unattended around my house, because my cat has decided she loves them, too!

RAW LADY – That is so funny about your cat. Mine always like to eat greens every now and again.

Thanks for the info. I’m going to try these. Do you make any other kind of chips? I would like something with a little more body that I can dip in guacamole or salsa. I didn’t like the carrot chips I tried.

meditating, did you try any o the raw corn chips? i had some luck with a recipe from alissa cohen.

Hope you enjoy the kale chips Meditating …
My other favorite chip is basic flax chips – recipe from alissa cohen book.
soak 2 cups of flax seed in 3 cups water at least 4 hours.
meanwhile in my magic bullet, I mix 2 – 4 cloves garlic, juice of 1/2 lemon, 2 TBL nama shoyu and some ginger and a splash of water. Put everything in the food processor (magic bullet liquid and soaked flax seed). Blend it up just a bit – it gets gooey. Only takes a minute or so. If it seems a bit thick, add some water. Then, spread mixture on teflex sheets. The thinner you spread it, the more chip-like it is. I spread it really thin – the goo holds it together. You might want to make them a bit thicker for dipping.

cool ideas here…
btw… has anyone ever had a cat that likes corn on the cob?
My sister’s cat, Luna, would go nuts whenever she saw anyone eating it… she’d try to jump on their lap and steal it…. she was so cute.

no, but my dogs do! I used to have one that would eat it row by row!

there are some kale chips on this site, i think they are “chrissy’s green goddess kale chips” or something like that- they are awesome! I’ve made them several times

Speaking of cats eating greens, I once made a really good smoothie with E3Live (Fresh frozen Wild Blue Green Algae), frozen wild blueberries, and a touch of maple syrup and my cat wouldn’t stop licking it.

I am also intrigued by kale chips. What consistency do they have when they’re dry? Like a crunchy kind of chip, or chewy? Consistency of potato chips?

when i make them they are flakey/crunchy and then they melt in your mouth- hard to describe but really good

I tried Chrissy’s Green Goddess Kale Chips and they nearly started a food war at my house! My husband loved them and so did I. I threatened him not to eat them all in one sitting so he put them in another container and left 1 piece for me. I was not amused! They’re amazingly great – maybe the best snack food ever!!!

I dried mine overnight and they weren’t exacly crispy like bagged chips, but not exactly chewy – they were somewhere in between. Of course, the tahini in this particular recipe probably adds to the overall texture quite a lot. Mine were spicy and delish – unbelievably good. My kid hated them, though, as did my coworkers. Good – more for me!!!

You can’t dip with them, but they’re coated in dip so no need.

rawlady – thanks for the info that you don’t have to really lay them out 1 by 1. That was the only drawback, IMHO. I was going to try the “dump and smear” method next time anyway. Good to know it’ll work.

Calcium, anyone???

LOVE these. Here is my question – how the heck do you keep ‘em crispy? I love ‘em right out of the dehydrator but if there are any left they are limp really quick?

Any help?

EasyCheetah, sounds like they need to be vacuum sealed. How ‘bout using a Food Saver to vacuum seal them in a quart or larger canning jar? For anyone new to Food Savers and vacuum sealing check out this thread and this one. I’d be lost without my Food Saver.

EDIT: How silly of me. I failed to mention that these would probably need to be WIDE MOUTH canning jars. I’m so intrigued by the idea of kale chips, that I’m off to the store to buy kale. I’ll be traveling with friends later this weekend and need some appropriate munchies.

Rawlady, what kind of oil do you use, or does it matter?

Speaking of shrugging up into nothing when you dry something, I once cut up an entire head of raw cauliflower and let it dehydrate in a little oil overnight. I looked in the morning and all there was was scattered minute crumbs, lol, quite a fascinating thing that cauliflower contains that much water.

EMPTDMOM I received my Food Saver today and am on my way to scrounge up some wide mouth canning jars.

Meditating, I’m sure you will get much use from your Food Saver. I vacuum seal many interesting things with mine. The uses seem endless. Maybe one day we’ll run a thread listing all the non-conventional uses for a Food Saver. Might be interesting.

I love kale chips…here’s a blog post I did about them…
http://rawroyalty.blogspot.com/2008/05/kale-chi…

and here’s the recipe here on Gone Raw
http://www.goneraw.com/recipes/1673-Dilly-Dally…

www.rawroyalty.blogspot.com