Chip Trick

I have tried several times to make kale chips. The first few times did not go so well. The chips were either soggy or so crisp to the point of being almost burnt and it tasted as such. After reading this blog entry I realized what I was doing wrong. The trick is to dry the kale as much as possible before baking them. Because I wasn't drying the kale enough, sometimes the same chip would be soggy and burnt because only part of it was dry while the other part wasn't and so the dry part would crisp up much quicker while the other part remained soggy.

So earlier this week I figured out what I have to do. The evening before the day that I am about to make the chips, I spin dry the kale several times with my salad spinner (the one I have is comparable to the one I linked) which was a wedding present and so we have had it for the past almost 7 years and use it all the time.  The I lay out the kale (already torn into small pieces) on my jelly roll pan and let it continue drying over night. In the morning I toss the kale with some oil and then baked it in the oven for about 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees (always watching the kale closely so that it doesn't burn).

It comes out so much better now after learning how important it is that the kale be as dry as possible. The best thing is that bébé loves eating the kale chips which are healthy and a great source of vitamins and minerals. I have been feeding them to her as her mid-morning snack and she just gobbles them down. I actually did not add any seasoning other than the olive oil though the recipe I linked does include a secret ingredient. If bébé ever decided to not eat the kale that I have been making, then I will probably try the linked recipe with the special seasonings.

Below are the tasty, crispy, nutritious kale chips baked and eaten all in one morning. There was more but I took the picture after most of them had already been eaten.