Kale Chip
Kale chips… the raw vegan alternative to potato chips. I'm addicted to them. I eat about a third of them before they even finish dehydrating. Even if I ate junk food, I'd choose kale chips over potato chips, or tortilla chips any day. Yes, they really are that good! And here's the thing… kale is really, really good for you. Prepared this way it's easy to eat a whole mixing bowl of kale in one sitting. My dogs adore them, I'm sure kids will too. They're simple to make too, it's easy to experiment, and it's hard to go wrong with them. Here's the most basic recipe for salted kale chips. So if you get the hankering for something salty, crunchy and oily instead of reaching for the potato chips, try some of these healthy, nutritious kale chips instead.
Ingredients:
2 bunches of kale, rinse and remove stem
3 tablespoon olive oil or hemp seed oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Celtic or Himalyan sea salt to taste
Instructions:
- Mix the oil, apple cider vinegar and salt in a large mixing bowl. It's easy to add more salt later and adjust it to your taste.
- Tear, or roughly chop the kale leaves up into bite-sized pieces. Think potato chip size, they will shrink a bit once they are dehydrated. Toss the kale pieces into the bowl with the oil and vinegar.
- Periodically mix the kale as you are adding it by tossing the kale in the oil and ACV mixture. Get your hands in there and massage the oil into the kale. You're aiming to have the oil and ACV evenly coating all of the kale. It's easier to do this if you add a bit of kale, toss and massage, add some more kale, toss and massage and repeat until you have used up all the kale.
Making Kale Chips: Massaging the kale
- Place a Teflex sheet on top of a dehydrator tray and drop a handful or two of the coated kale leaves onto it. Try to spread the kale around so it's not all clumped together, but you don't have to be too particular about placing each individual piece because it will shrink and separate a bit as it's dehydrating.
Kale chips spread on Teflex sheet
- Dehydrate overnight at 105-110 degrees F. It should take 10-12 hours, but times may vary due to humidity, size of the ‘chips' and how thinly you can spread them on the sheets.
- In the morning, turn the kale onto a regular dehydrator tray to finish it off. Dehydrate for another 2-4 hours until crispy. NOTE: I've now found that if I don't spread them too thick on the sheets, that after 10-12 hours of dehydrating they will be done without having to turn them.
Kale chips almost ready to eat
- Eat fresh from the dehydrator or store in a tightly sealed glass jar to keep them crisp. I'm not sure how long they will keep because they never last for more than 2 days around me 😉
Store kale chips in a glass jar
Enjoy!
Variations:
I'll be posting the recipes for more flavors soon, but once you get the idea from this basic recipe try experimenting with adding different spices.
- Want it a little hot and spicy? Try adding some cayenne.
- Craving a cheesy flavor? Just add some nutritional yeast or Parmesan (if you eat dairy).
You get the idea. If you come up with some tasty variations be sure to share them in the comments.
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Cool! I love kale chips now, so much more satisfying than potato chips. I just can’t get enough of them. Let us know how yours turn out.
Can I make Kale juice . normally I drink fresh carret and cellry juice. How can I get most from the kale.
Thanks!
@gkumar sorry it took me a little while to answer your question, but I wanted to look up some information before I replied because I know there’s a caution on consuming lots of kale if you have certain medical conditions. So here’s what I found…
Kale juice is excellent when mixed in with other fresh vegetable juices, but you probably don’t want to have more than your 1/3 of your juice mix to be kale juice, because it can be quite strong tasting. If the leaves are really large you may have to cut them, but smaller leaves can just be fed into your juicer just like you would with parsley. I’d suggest using your celery or carrot to push the kale leaves through, and I think it would go very nicely with your daily carrot and celery juice. I prefer blended drinks to vegetable juices at the moment (both are great for you and each has it’s advantages), and kale usually features quite prominently in my green smoothies too. The only thing I’d advise is that you don’t put kale into anything that you are going to keep for any length of time before drinking. I usually make up about 2 litres of blended green smoothie and it takes me the whole morning to finish it off. That’s fine if I consume it within about 3 hours of blending it up, but when I’ve tried to keep them to drink later in the day I find the kale gets really pungent after sitting for much longer than 2-3 hours. If you don’t mind that radish/mustard type pungent flavor you might enjoy it, but I find it can get a bit too strong for me.
There is a caution with kale, or any of the cabbage family, and this is what I really wanted to look up before I answered because I know it’s easy to consume large amounts of vegetables in their juiced form. According to The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods by Michael T. Murray and Joseph Pizzorno “Members of the cabbage family contain goitrogens, naturally occurring substances that can interfere with the functioning of the thyroid glad. Dietary goitrogens are usually of no clinical importance unless they are consumed in large amounts or there is coexisting iodine deficiency. Individuals with already existing and untreated thyroid problems may want to avoid consumption of cabbage-family vegetables in their raw form for this reason.”
So that’s the first caution, and the second is, “Kale also contains significant amount of oxalate. Individuals with a history of oxalate-containing kidney stones should avoid overconsuming kale and other oxalate-containing greens.”
~ The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods
Since it’s possible to consume much larger quantities of vegetables in their juiced form than if you have to chew them up as in a salad for instance, you might just want to keep that in mind if you have problems with either of those two conditions, or ask your health care practitioner to be certain. But other than that kale is one of the best, most nutritious vegetables there is.
I just made kale juice – add half a pineapple, half a lemon, 2 cucumbers, bunch of mint with stems cut off, bunch of kale (cut off the root / stem part), and a finger pinch of ginger (1/4 inch ginger) – juice it – just got done making it a few minutes ago! makes almost a full 2 quarts if you have a good juicer – my juice is almost gone it was that good and filling.
http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/48-hour-weekend-cleanse-recipes?page=2#copy
Wow, Robin that sounds yummy! And refreshing. I LOVE pineapple in juices and smoothies. Can I post your recipe as a full article? Do you have a photo you can send us? Thank you for sharing that!
Is the apple vinegar neccessary? I cannot stand vinnegar and would love a healthy alternative to potato chips. thanks
Hi Matt. Thanks for the question! I normally can’t stand vinegar either, but I find a little bit of apple cider vinegar doesn’t bother me at all. You could definitely try just leaving the cider vinegar out. I find the vinegar/lemon juice cuts the heaviness of the oil somewhat. But I know that there are many people who digest oils much better than I do, and you may not even notice the difference.
As an alternative to the cider vinegar, you could use a bit of lemon juice or very fermented kombucha (if you have some).
I have lemons(and therefor the juice). As long as you can’t ‘taste’ the vinegar(like you would in say a vinegar based salad dressing) I’m ok with it. Just picked up some kale today(man is it cheap) and will give this a go. I am trying to become more healthy but still like to snack. I got my dehydrator to make dried fruits, jerky, and dry soaked nuts/seeds, but this and the mushroom recipe linked to it sound awesome. Will let you know how it comes out. THNX
Hey Matt, great you’ve got a dehydrator! Both this and the mushrooms are delicious. Do let me know how it comes out. I’ll be putting up more great dehydrator recipes soon.
Really you can’t taste, or smell the vinegar in this recipe. I loathe the smell and taste of vinegar, and I’m fine with this. But since you have them at home, and I’m guessing you’d have to buy the cider vinegar, give the lemon juice a try. I’m sure they will be beautiful. If they are mild tasting lemons I’d say try the same amount as the recipe calls for, if they are very tart lemons maybe halve the amount (unless you really love that lemon tartness like I do).
Quick update…am going to try the receipe tomorrow but before I do, I noticed your kale is much ‘flatter’ than mine. Mine looks like the garnish you see in a salad bar(very curly). Is there a major difference between the two?
I’ve been wanting to make kale chips, but I was wondering if dehydrating the kale will help eliminate the goitrogens. I’ve been having a difficult time finding an answer to this question. I was recently diagnosed with hypothyroidism, but am craving something crunchy. I cannot eat other types of chips because I am on a low-carb diet due to health reasons. Thanks for your help!
That’s a good question Catherine. I’ve not been able to see anything that suggests that dehydrating would reduce the goitrogens in the kale. I’ve experimented with various things to try to get that ‘potato chip’ crispiness, but so far the kale chips are the closest substitute I’ve found. But I did make a crispy mix with soaked sunflower seeds and grated carrot. I was trying to replicate Bhuja mix. I didn’t manage to exactly replicate the taste, but it was a nice crispy savory snack all the same. It would be easy to use different flavorings on the same basic recipe.
Have you tried Maca root powder for your hypothyroidism? It’s a powerful adaptogen that helps balance and support the endocrine system. Delicious too, great in smoothies. I also mix it into my raw chocolate recipes, it goes really well with raw cacao.
I have hypothyroidism and I’ve have been searching endlessly for the same answer about dehydrating kale to reduce goitrogens too but I do know that maca powder does have goitrogens in it as well. You can use it to cook with and it retains it’s nutrition. I’ve been looking into that too. If you find out about the kale please let me know. 😉
Hi Donna. I just mixed up a batch and am looking forward to the results. I tasted the mixture and man o man that would make an awesome salad dressing all by itself.
I bought the kale at my nearest Whole Foods market after picking up the ingredients for a Mexican dish called Green Mole. I can forward you the recipe if you would like to review it.
Hi Heather, I LOVE Mexican! I’d love it if you could send me the recipe for the Green Mole.
Let me know how you like the finished kale chips. Mine never really make it out of the dehydrator… they somehow all seem to go from tray to mouth. People keep asking, “how long do kale chips last”. I keep planning to do an experiment to see… never happens though. I’m lucky if I remember to take a photo of each new flavor before I eat them all. That’s why you may notice that many of the recipes for kale chips all have suspiciously similar-looking photos 😉
Hi Donna,
haha.. I think I should have posted my love of the Kale chip sauce as a salad dressing on the Cheesy recipe instead of this one, so you are right, the photo was misleading..haha..
I really love the kale chips and look forward to making many more in the future especially since kale is petty reasonably priced at my market. My batch didn’t make it that long either!
I sent you the recipe for the Mole to the contact part of this website, which I trust will get to you.
Hi Heather,
Thanks so much, I did receive the Mole recipe. Looks delicious, I can’t wait to try it, but I’ll have to wait until fresh chillies come into season.
Glad you liked the kale chips! I’ve been making batches too. I am so bad, I go to check to see if they are ready, and of course I have to taste them to see if they are crispy enough. Then after I’ve eaten half the tray… I can sometimes manage to pull myself away. We’ve got tons of kale in the garden right now (Southern hemisphere), it’s really their time of year and they are going for it. I made some 2 days ago and I’m heading out to pick more for another batch. I’ll post a couple more kale chip recipes soon.
Hi, Donna–I followed your link over from Lisa Baldwin’s ZenAtPlay.com–the kale chips sound like a great replacement for potato chips, as you said. I’m going to search your site now and see what info. I can find about dehydrators…although I’m a little concerned about how much space one would take up because I live in an apartment with a kitchen the size of a postage stamp. :o)
I look forward to browsing through the rest of your site, too–glad you directed me here!
Wow, Donna–thanks for all the fantastic information and advice! I just priced the Excalibur, and yeah, it’s kind of a lot of money. But I can try a batch of these in the oven first, as you suggest…and look for other dehydrator recipes I might like, too. 🙂
My pleasure Michelle. I just thought of something else, if you, or someone you know is handy with building things you can also build your own. I did this when I was a teenager, got my dad to cut the wood for the sides because I built a massive beast of a dehydrator. It had legs, and stood on the floor. It was like a piece of furniture. Worked really well though.
Here are some articles on building your own dehydrator:
Super-easy, low cost solar dehydrator
How to make and use a home food dehydrator
How to build a food dryer
They may be a bit time-intensive and not feasible for you, but I just thought I’d include them anyway in case they help someone else too.
Hi Lori, thanks so much for posting your experience with them! You can definitely adjust the amount of oil you use. I found they tasted too oily when I didn’t use vinegar, so it may also make them seem less oily if you add a bit more vinegar too. If the curly part kept it’s shape you may need to massage them more. By the time I finish massaging them they almost look like they’ve been sauteed.
Please post back about how the green beans turn out. I could imagine it working. I had lots of green beans from the garden at one point and I was trying to figure how I could dehydrate them in a way that was tasty. Just dehydrating them as-is was NOT a success. So that’s very exciting if they can be prepared much like the kale. They might be like those little crunchy shoestring potato snacks.
Yummy, except I used too much salt. 1 tsp was too much since these don’t absorb salt like a potato chip would. Just FYI for newbies.
Thanks for the recipe.
Hi Tabitha. I’ve had both situations where I used too much or too little salt. I think the saltiness concentrates as you dry them. There is such variation in the size of a bunch of kale too. I hope your next batch turns out less salty.
Wow, thanks kikii! I’m glad you liked the kale chips. I’m addicted to them.
These are amazing. My husband is a crisp (chip) fanatic and never ever wants to try my kale chips. he finally did and was rolling his eyes and stuffing them in! I also make a decadent version by bplending some cashews with water and seasonings of choice (Nut.yeast, curry powder, onion powder, turmeric) and massaging into the leaves, and then dehydrating. Higher fat, but OH.MY.KALE!!!!
Hi Beth, what a great story about your husband discovering kale chips! But now you’ll have to keep him away from them so you can get some yourself, LOL! Thanks for those flavoring suggestions, they sound so delicious! I have used raw tahini in a similar manner as you describe with the cashews. I bet it’s beautiful using the cashews though, I can almost imagine it! The higher fat content is okay, since it’s a good fat.
I am a potato chip addict…so started making Kale Chips as a substitute!! now I’m addicted to Kale Chips, especially sprinkled with curry powder. Also, you don’t have to use apple cider vinegar, although I do love the taste of the olive oil and vinegar chips…instead of mixing the kale in the bowl, you can just put your oil in a spray mister bottle if you don’t want to use the vinegar.
That’s a really good idea to use the spray bottle for the oil Janet! The funny thing is that I hate the smell and taste of salt and vinegar chips. But I love these with the ACV because it cuts the oil in a nice way. Curry flavor kale chips sound great too.
I stumbled across your site while looking for a kale chip recipe in response to a Ted talk http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxIowaCity-Dr-Terry-Wahls-Min. I’m looking forward to trying these chips.
Thank you Eli, for leaving that link to the TED talk you were searching for! I’m listening to it now, very interesting! I hope you enjoy my site, and thanks again for the link to that video.
Hi – great site and great recipe! However, I was wondering how this might turn out without the oil? I, too, love the taste of vinegar and oil together, but have been trying to cut back on oil consumption. Thanks!
SOOO glad I found your website!!! I just bought a dehydrator and am making kale chips. I’m also dehydrating stawberries and they need to done at 135 degrees. I threw my kale in there also. Hope the temp difference does not ruin them. I will keep my eye on them as they will probably be done in less time than your recipe at 110 degrees.
Thank you Julie! The should still taste fine dehydrated at the higher temperature, they just may lose some of their beneficial enzymes.
Lady at the farmer’s market told me to try kale chips. I read your recipe, then added some balsamic vinegar because, well, because it sounded good. Newbie tip: Dehydrating something with balsamic vinegar will make your whole house smell.
Just made these this morning! What a treat! Half eaten before they are all gone. Will try a batch with some garlic and another with cayenne. Finally a great substitute for chips!
Hi there. Is there an alternative to a dehydrator? I don’t have one, but am really keen to make these. THanks very much 🙂