Baked kale chips might become your new favorite snack! Not on the kale bandwagon yet? This incredibly simple, surprisingly delicious no-fail baked kale chips recipe might have you jumping on board, stat.
Kale has been a hot superfood for some time now, and if you haven’t found a way to incorporate it into your diet yet, you need to try baked kale chips.
They’re easy to make and very addictive, helping with salty-crunchy cravings while allowing you to get a green veggie rather than demolishing a bag of much more caloric chips.
Why Make Baked Kale Chips?
Baked kale chips are a great choice for gut health and your immune system, and kale is also a member of the crucifer family, which can play a role in cancer prevention.
Kids like baked kale chips, too. Well, some kids. Mine have yet to see the light. (More for me — hooray!)
Since I’m all about shortcuts to a healthy lifestyle, this baked kale chips recipe will probably be the simplest you’ll find, no fussing over blotting the kale or any unnecessary steps.
Bonus: The oven stayson a very short time, using less energy than many other recipes and keeping the heat out of your kitchen in summer. This also preventsyou from burning your baked kale chips, which is really easy to do when you leave the oven on and don’t keep a close eye on them.
Save money and time making healthy food while shrinking the footprint of your cooking? No fail baked kale chips are a win-win-win!
If you love to save money on healthy food, check out one of my absolute favorite places to get real food pantry staples for less, Vitacost. They often have sales that knock an additional 15-20% off their already terrific prices.
Organic seeds (like chia, sunflower seeds, and pepitas)
Roasted nori (when we don’t have kale chips on hand, seaweed makes a tasty stand-in!)
and much more! Check them out and you might become a devoted customer as well.
If you have broccoli or cauliflower leaves, you can add them to your kale and make mixed chips.
Find more than 40 additional ways to make the most of your food with root-to-stem recipes here.
Get more savvy tips to help you live greener and healthier every day by following HealthyGreenSavvy on Facebook and Pinterest, where you’ll find easy health hacks, eco-living essentials, and simple healthy recipes shared daily.
This no fail method for perfectly crispy kale chips will be your go-to for this crunch, delicious, and super-healthy snack.
Ingredients
Large bunch kale
About 2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt
Instructions
Wash your kale and give it a good shake to remove excess water. No need to bother patting dry, but feel free to spin in a salad spinner to get more water off if you're so inclined. I never seem to be.
Tear up kale into 2-inch pieces and spread in a single layer on cookie sheets. Discard stems, unless you'd like to try stirfrying them.
Drizzle or spray with olive oil, shake a little salt on and mix the whole lot up well with your hands. Massaging kale is actually kind of enjoyable.
Put your oiled kale in the oven and set to 300 degrees (no need to preheat).
Turn it off about 5 minutes after it hits that temperature.
Check after 10 minutes. Your kalelikely will need a little mixing up.
Leave kaletill the heat dissipates; I often leave it in the cooling oven overnight and check in the morning. You can turn the heat back on again briefly if need be
Kale chips are done when they're crispy and melt-in-your-mouth delicious.
Allow to cool, then put in an airtight container right away to keep your baked kale chips fresh. (If there’s any left, as it's really easy to chow an entire tray of these things, which is totally ok.)
Notes
If your baked kale chips get soggy before you finish them, you can returnthem tothe oven, turn it on briefly, cut the power, and let them recrisp. The oven doesn't need to get very hot for thisto work.
When kale is coming in great quantities at the farm, I make batch after batch of baked kale chips and generally eat through most of each week’s allotment before the next one comes in. I started growing some of my own so I can put up extra for winter.
All my kale gets turned into baked kale chips, but this collection of healthy kale recipes can give you great ideas for using any you have left.
If you have other green leafy veggies around, you can try making them into chips as well. Edible broccoli leaves and leaves from cauliflower work also, and apparently even dandelion greens make a tasty chip also!
Do you love crunchy, salty snacks, too? Make sure to try these incredibly easy & super-healthy zucchini chips and spiced roasted chickpeas.
Kale chips are an affordable way to get some extra healthy into your diet. Want more tips for making the healthiest food fit your budget? Grab The Savvy Guide to Eating Healthy on a Budget here.
Pin to save this baked kale chips recipe for later!
Baked Kale Chips Recipe Photo credit: PingPongCat
Susannah
Susannah is a proud garden geek and energy nerd who loves healthy food and natural remedies. Her work has appeared in Mother Earth Living, Ensia, Northern Gardener, Sierra, and on numerous websites. Her first book, Everything Elderberry, released in September 2020 and has been a #1 new release in holistic medicine, naturopathy, herb gardening, and other categories. Find out more and grab your copy here.
Lucky for us, baked kale chips also happen to be Whole30, low carb, and keto-friendly! To make kale chips, however, there are a few key points to keep in mind: The kale leaves must be SUPER DRY. Bake the kale at 350°F.
We love leafy greens in general, but it is amazing what a transformation kale undergoes when heated at low temperature in the oven. My kids can devour an entire head of kale prepared this way in five minutes flat. And unlike potato chips, kale retains its nutritional value when made into chips.
Kale is a nutrient-dense food that's high in several vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. While cooking kale makes it less bitter, it also significantly reduces its antioxidant, vitamin C, and mineral content.
In the long run, replacing high-calorie snacks (looking at you potato chips) with kale chips can be a helpful component to losing weight. That's because kale chips are more nutrient-dense and less calorie-dense. That's a fancy way of saying they help you feel full with less calories.
Plantains, also called cooking bananas, are starchy fruits with a neutral flavor, making them a perfect choice for those on grain-free diets like Whole30. What's more, they can be made into chips and pair well with savory dips like hummus.
For most of us, salty, crunchy chips are a bonafide food-with-no-brakes, because these foods were designed to promote overconsumption. For that reason, do not consume any starchy chips during your Whole30 elimination, including potato, sweet potato, tortilla, plantain, cassava, or taro chips.
Kale is packed with anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties. It's remarkably high in fibre and iron; it's also high in vitamins K and D, and a great source of calcium. To add to this already impressive list, it's also high in omega-3 and 6, folic acid and Vitamin B6.
To keep them crispy, it is important to let them cool completely. Once cooled, they can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for 2-3 days. You could also try adding a few grains of raw rice or silica packs (like those found in store-bought kale chips) to the airtight container. & Perfect for snacking!
When it comes to baked kale chips, brown equals bitter. That's why it can be a little tricky to know when your kale chips are fully baked because you can't really judge by the color. You want to remove baked kale chips from the oven before they brown but while they're still a bit soft in the center.
Theoretically, eating massive quantities of cruciferous vegetables like kale (i.e. more than you would ever possibly want to eat) could potentially impact your thyroid. Maybe. If you actually have a thyroid problem you're worried about, your doctor might recommend against overdoing the kale.
Steaming is a better option than boiling because you don't lose as many nutrients with this cooking method, according to Gray. “You're not giving it heat treatment for very long, so it's closest to raw that you can get and you still are cooking it to some degree,” she said.
The big difference is with vitamin C, where the raw kale has about 5 times as much vitamin C as the cooked. There is about twice as much iron, calcium and potassium, in raw kale as there is in cooked kale, and there is about 20% more phosphorus in the raw kale.
Consuming leafy green vegetables, such as spinach, dark lettuce, and kale is a fantastic way to burn belly fat. They improve your metabolism and carry many minerals. Iron, for example, is excellent for your blood and results in more effective workouts.
For starters, it is very low in calories but still provides significant bulk that should help you feel full ( 1 ). Because of the low calorie and high water content, kale has a low energy density. Eating plenty of foods with a low energy density has been shown to aid weight loss in numerous studies ( 30 , 31 ).
So, allow us to make it easy for you, and return to our Whole30 “real, whole, nutrient-dense” food roots: No store-bought chips. Period. Not even if they're kale. Not even if they're roasted.
Fill a cutting board with sliced apples, grapes, berries, sliced bell peppers, carrots and other seasonal fruits and vegetables. Dips you can use include Whole30-compliant hummus (made with something other than chickpeas — try making your own with cauliflower instead), ranch or green goddess dressing.
Because these are still foods with no brakes, we made a rule change eliminating any store-bought chips for 30 days. We instead encouraged people to make their own at home by baking, pan-frying, air-frying, or roasting your own plantains or potatoes.
Are You Sure These Are Whole30? On Whole30 you are not allowed to have any store-bought commercially-made chips. Read this link to find out more on that. So, no store-bought plantain chips allowed on Whole30, even with compatible ingredients.
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