Food goes through trends. Kale became this superfood and kale chips were everywhere. When I realised how easy it was to make kale chips they made a regular appearance at meal times. Because they are simple to make, I have often baked a batch when I’ve had extra kids pop over and I need to add to a meal I’ve already prepared.

Kale Chips

• Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees.
• Chop your kale. You will only want the leafy bits, the stalks can go into compost heap or worm farm.
• Add this chopped kale to a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds and salt. Mix so everything is combined.
• Pop onto a tray and bake at 180 degrees for 10 minutes.

Easy as that!

Tips

• Most of the time I have roughly chopped my kale so it is still in medium bits. I have noticed the finer the kale is chopped, the less cooking time it needs and the crispier it gets.
• Bake the kale chips on a flat tray, evenly spread out. Baking in a dish doesn’t seem to get the kale as crispy as baking on a tray.
• You can also bake whole kale leaves. I used to make kale chips this way. Using an olive oil spray is handy if baking like this. I just find I can bake more kale chips if I chop them first – I usually have a few mouths to feed!
• Don’t add too much oil – your kale chips will burn. If in doubt, start off adding a teaspoon of oil and mixing through. You only need to kale just coated and no oil to be in the bottom of the bowl.
• Try flavoured salts or spice mixes. I sometimes use porcini salt or a dukkah spice mix. If using the dukkah spice mix, I leave the sesame seeds out because the dukkah mix already has sesame seeds in it.
• Pre-heating your oven is important – you want the oven to be hot when the tray goes in.
• My oven is fan forced and I find 180 degrees perfect. There have been times I have baked at 200 degrees but the chips on the outside of the tray tend to go crispier than the middle ones. As each oven is different and depending on the size of your kale pieces, check your chips after 8 minutes – just too make sure they aren’t getting burnt.
• Let the kale chips cool for a minute. They are hot when they come out of the oven – burnt tongues just leads to no taste buds for a while! Also, I have found the kale chips are crunchier a couple of minutes out of the oven.

Kale Chip Novice or Kale Chip Expert? Let us know your kale chip experiences in the comments below!