Kale chips have a key advantage over homemade seaweed snacks: The leaves grow rapidly in my garden throughout the growing season. Even when winter snow buries the garden, local stores offer several varieties of kale that crisp up beautifully in the oven.
I experimented with several ways to turn kale into snackable chips before settling on seasoning and roasting. The food dehydrator made plain kale leaves taste like a dried herb. Oiling the leaves and then drying them just made them chewy. Baking unadorned leaves in the oven gave crispness but little extra flavor. In contrast, a quick toss with oil and seasonings like soy sauce and sesame seeds before roasting makes it hard to stop eating kale chips.
You can use this same technique not just for various types of kale but also for other vegetables with sturdy leaves, like Swiss chard. Freshly harvested leaves retain the brightest color, so I often pick and roast straightaway during the growing season. In winter, when I’m buying kale, I look for the freshest leaves too. But roasting also gives kale that’s starting to wilt in the fridge a second life.
As the oven draws moisture from sturdy kale and chard leaves, they become crisper but also more delicate. Chips that flake apart readily and the thumbnail-size leaves at the base of the stem make a delicious a garnish over popcorn, rice or beans.
If you tire of the flavorings in the recipe, try other ways of spicing up these snacks. Add a dash of sesame oil to the olive oil, and sprinkle the baked leaves with citrus juice and horseradish powder – or use any of the other flavor variations I recommended with last week’s Homemade Roasted Seaweed Snacks. Swap in other oils as desired, and season the coated leaves with flavored salts, freshly ground black pepper, finely grated Parmesan or nutritional yeast.
Oven-Roasted Kale Chips
Makes 50-60 pieces
About 8 ounces kale
1-1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
1 tablespoon white and/or black sesame seeds
Rinse the kale leaves and thoroughly blot them dry with a tea towel. Tear the leaves from the tough ribs and then into pieces about 4 inches square, or your desired size; compost the ribs. Pour the oil and soy sauce into a large bowl, add the kale pieces and toss to coat evenly.
Spread the leaves in a single layer on two rimmed baking sheets, avoiding overlap. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake at 350°F for 15 to 20 minutes, rotating the pans after 10 minutes, until the leaves are crisp but not brown. Once cool, store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to two weeks for the best flavor.
Julie Laing is a Bigfork-based cookbook author and food blogger at TwiceAsTasty.com.