Crispy Kale Chips

This ecard almost perfectly describes my daily life. I want to lose weight, but I also want to eat. 

Is this actually possible? Is it actually possible that I don’t have to starve myself and still lose weight. Yes, I have come to believe that losing weight and getting healthy has nothing to do with not eating. It actually has a lot to do with eating and eating right. I have come to believe that everything is okay in moderation. Portion control and moderation is absolutely the key to still allow yourself to enjoy eating and stick with your diet, but still lose weight. I have shared with you all so many of my sweet treat recipes which can be good in moderation  I also have shared with you my belief that eating should be fun and introduced you to some healthy foods that don’t taste like those boring meals you think you have to eat. Here is another one of those fun, but healthy snacks. Crispy Kale Chips can be perfect when you are craving something salty, but feel guilty just looking at a bag of Lay’s. Don’t feel guilty anymore, yes kale looking like lettuce, yes you may be skeptical, but at least finish reading this post. Give me the next few minutes of your time and I hope that you give these a try!

Ingredients

Kale: 2.5 cups, fresh and cleaned

Extra Virgin Olive Oil: 1/2 tablespoon

Salt

(Optional) Garlic Salt

(Optional) Parmesan Cheese

As you can see, I think I bought the largest bag of kale greens that was ever made 🙂 But seriously, I just bought the only bag I could find at Wegman’s. What in the world would I do with all this kale I asked myself; kale chips here we come.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. This kale was already cleaned and cut, so the only thing you need to do is remove any stems. These pieces don’t come out very crispy and may turn you away to the chips. After removing take about 1/5 of this bag or 2 1/2 cups of your kale in a large bowl.

In this bowl you will add your olive oil and mix with your hands thoroughly. You could use more olive oil if you want, but I was trying to watch my calories for this snack. Now the fun begins! You definitely need salt for these chips, so add a good dose of salt shakes and mix around. I made about five batches of kale chips, so each time I added a different ingredient. I first only added a few shakes of salt and I was asking for more with every bite. Sea salt or a salt grinder would be perfect, but unfortunately all I had was table salt. To combat this issue I added some garlic salt for an extra bite of flavor and a little more salt. I also made a Parmesan cheese batch which was fabulous. Just remember to add these ingredients after your olive oil and make sure you use enough. When baking the chips the flavor tends to fade.

Take a cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper. You can skip lining your pan if you want, but this does help for easy clean-up when you’re making multiple batches. Lay your coated kale onto the cookie sheet and spread out evenly. You want a thin layer of kale, so all of the pieces can cook fairly evenly. 

Cook your kale in the oven for around 25-30 minutes. You do not want the kale to come out brown, you want a nice green color. Check after 25 minutes and you can see the level of crispness you are getting. Once crispy, remove carefully from the oven and let cool. I couldn’t help but try one or two right away, but what’s new 🙂 This also gave me ideas for my next batch if I should increase or decrease the flavorings, seasonings, or salt. By the last two batches I had it down perfect!

You can see how this recipe is trial and error. I tried some seasonings I liked, but feel free to try your own. Something I have always wanted to try is garlic-infused olive oil. I just feel like it would be perfect! If you have any infused olive oils feel free to use these too.

Even better than the taste was actually the nutritional value. I got to thinking, okay why am I actually eating this kale. I flipped over the back of the kale bag and was absolutely shocked. For each serving size, which I mentioned was 2 1/2 cups for me, there were only 45 calories, and get this: 260% of your daily Vitamin A and 170% of your daily Vitamin C. I was absolutely shocked! Don’t get me wrong, I was a little skeptical too when someone mentioned making chips out of this weird lettuce looking vegetable. You all know how much I like my snacks, my sweets, and even I gave it a try. That huge bag of kale was only a little over $2 at Wegman’s, so how could I not?

I took all of my batches and individually bagged them so when I need a snack I can just grab a pre-portioned amount of these yummy, but extremely healthy chips! I know you may think I’m crazy, but please give these a try. For $2 and some change you may find your new favorite snack! Let me know if you find any seasoning combinations that you like too!