Everyone knows what the afternoon snack attack is. You just can’t seem to get enough of crunchy, salty food. I hear you. For me, it tends to be popcorn. I’m trying to break that habit, while simultaneously outsmarting the deer in my yard. What’s the perfect solution? Making and eating Kale Chips!!
Yesterday I woke up to a deer standing in my garden, right at my front door, eating ALL of my Swiss Chard and making his way to my kale! ARG! I decided enough is enough. No one messes with my kale! I got busy and picked a huge amount of curly green kale… more than even I can get through in a week of kale salad meals. That’s a lot, let me tell you. I’m addicted to kale and my Kale Caesar Salad Dressing. 🙂 I know, I always plug this post, but honestly, it’s so good (in my mind), I debated making it to sell it by the bottle!
My eldest daughter, who used to eat kale salad even for breakfast, has recently had her love for it wain… She does however LOVE kale chips. As we played cards on Father’s Day this weekend, she loaded herself up a big bowl and proceeded to scarf it down with a spoon! Win.
You may not know that when you make kale chips, you start off with an abundance of kale, and as it bakes, it shrivels up to next to next to nothing. The good news about that, is you eat way more kale chips than you would fresh kale, and the youngin’s don’t even realize the condensed amount of nutrients they are eating! (Vitamin A, C and K, 3 grams
We are a family of 4, yet within 24 hours, our 9 trays of baked kale chips were all gone. That’s at least 40 cups of kale! And some people worry we might become protein deficient! Bah. Did you know all protein comes from plants? Think of how strong gorillas are… What do they eat? Bamboo shoots and stems, fruits and ants!
This snack is easy to make and you don’t have to make tons of it. Just make what you have and keep it simple. It will only take you a couple of minutes to mix up and pop in the oven to bake.
How to make delicious Kale Chips
Below you will find two recipes. The one in the main recipe box is “SO GOOD!” according to my 19 year old. It contains almond butter, so if you are allergic to nuts, you may want to substitute with tahini or try the option in the “Notes” section. Both options can be added oil free and if you don’t mind oil, but don’t want to your chips drenched in it, these are the recipes for you!
www.thevibrantveggie.com NO NUT VERSION:
Add 1/2 tablespoon olive oil or 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar to 10 cups of kale and massage.
Mix together: 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast,
1/2 teaspoon onion powder,
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (not garlic salt),
pinch of salt,
ground pepper,
any other spice of your choice (smoked paprika, chipotle powder, chili powder, cayenne pepper, cumin… whatever flavour you enjoy)
Toss spices on kale and follow recipe above to bake. 
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
Light, crunchy and healthy. That is the goal here. Enjoy and share the message… Kale is cool.