Kale Chips

I love salty foods. Salt and I are good friends. I consume more salt than most people, but I also need more salt than the average person. Anyway, I like salty foods. So, I was looking for a better way to snack than chips or popcorn. I tried kale chips, and then I tried spinach chips. Then I also tried sweet potato chips and yellow squash chips. 

Let me just tell you now:
Spinach and kale = success
Sweet potato and yellow squash = fail

The yellow squash chips were inedible. The sweet potato chips wouldn't dry out enough and they took forever. Not worth the time invested. 

So, here is how I bake kale to make chips:

Ingredients:
Kale
Olive Oil
Parchment Paper
Baking Sheets
Salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 300°F.
• Remove the spines from the kale (the thick green parts. They don't bake well. You just want the leafy bits)
• Place parchment paper over baking sheets (this step is definitely worth doing, it will save a lot of the cleaning hassle)
• Lightly oil the parchment paper (I use a paper towel to smear the oil around.
• Sprinkle the leafy kale onto the parchment paper and try to make sure they aren't all sitting on top of each other. 
• Spray lightly with olive oil. If you don't have the means to spray olive oil, you can pour a little olive oil over the kale and then toss it lightly to spread the olive oil as much as possible. I use a Misto, and it has worked so far, so no complaints. 
• Lightly sprinkle with salt. 
• Bake for 20 minutes. 
• Take the crisp pieces off the pan. If there are any flexible pieces, but them back in the oven for another 3-4 minutes.
• Repeat the last step as needed. 
• Enjoy!

This is actually baby Kale, and I don't like it as much as the frillier, adult kale. With this stuff, as well as with spinach, you cannot let the leaves sit on top of each other because they won't get crispy. It's really annoying and takes a lot longer to yield less than if you had used adult kale. 

Notice the yellows and browns? This is what burned kale looks like. I don't like it, but TC does. He says it reminds him of marshmallows...

This is what baked kale looks like when it isn't burned. Lovely, isn't it? 

Notes:
For the first batch at least, as soon as you start to smell the kale, let it bake for about 45 more seconds to a minute and then check to see if it is crispy. It is usually done at this point. This doesn't work for the subsequent batches because the house already smells like kale. 

I can't make enough of these to have a surplus. They get eaten so quickly, I don't know how to do this in bulk, but I want to know. 

TC likes them with less oil. He will eat them with no oil at all, but I like the oil, so we compromised and I only use a little. 

Review:
Love.

We love this so much. I want to make it all the time. We both give it a 5. 

Warning: this may be an addictive food, so be careful. 

Total Score:
5