Friday, April 23, 2010

Kale Chips


Courtesy of Kitchen Dispensary http://thekitchendispensary.wordpress.com/

Now I’m certainly not the first to post a recipe for kale chips but I think it’s important to revisit them considering how freakin delicious and nutritious they are. These chips can rival any potato snack and win hands down. Even if you don’t dehydrate these the recipe can make a very tasty salad. I can’t wait until my homegrown kale gets bigger and I can eat chips like theres no tomorrow.

Ingredients

The amounts of these are really up to individual taste, but I suggest you start with lots of kale because it shrinks quite considerably with dehydration and just add seasonings to taste as you go. Remember that flavours tend to become concentrated after dehydrating. Try to use all organic ingredients where possible.

  • Kale (I like the curly kale)
  • Lemon Juice
  • Flaxseed, Hemp or Olive oil
  • Himalayan or Celtic Sea Salt

Method

  1. Destalk the kale and chop any larger pieces into smaller sizes. The size is not really too important.
  2. Throw the kale into a large bowl and drizzle with a little oil and lemon juice. Massage the kale with your hands until it has wilted a bit and turned a dark glossy green. You can add more oil as you go if needed.
  3. Sprinkle with a little salt and place on mesh dehydrator trays.
  4. Dehydrate for about 6-8 hours or until crispy.
  5. Store in an airtight container.

About the Ingredients

Kale is a part of the brassica family so it’s a sibling of broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts and collard greens. It is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, and also pretty high in calcium. It has anti-cancer properties and can help your cells to cleanse and detoxify among other things. It’s also going to give you a pretty good dose of amino acids which are the building blocks of protein. So when anyone asks you where you get your protein just say kale!