Recipe: Kale chips
Can you name another food that provides a whopping 350 percent of your daily allowance of vitamin A per serving?
By Snack GirlThu, Jan 12 2012 at 12:34 PM EST
Photo: little blue hen/Flickr 
There are bunches of kale ready to eat in someone's garden right now. What are you going to do with it all?
Try kale chips!
Can you name another food that gives you a whopping 350 percent of your daily allowance of vitamin A per serving (and 11 percent of your iron, too)!
True confession: I hate kale ... but after I tried this, I decided I like kale. There is something about adding olive oil that makes vegetables taste good (like with the Green Beans with Olive Oil).
The recipe is really simple, and kale is readily available this time of year. It is crunchy and delicious and you'll find that you can eat an entire bunch of kale without noticing.
My kids will even eat kale with this preparation (something about salty crunchiness that stops the "ewwww it's green" response).
The Eat More Kale movement started in — guess where — Vermont. I have seen a few cars driving around with "Eat More Kale" bumper stickers.
I have to admit that there is probably no better food for you than kale. It is an absolute superstar in terms of nutrition.
Here is the recipe I modified from Kath Eats:
Kale Chips
Makes 2 servings
Ingredients
1 bunch kale (or 1/2 pound)
2 teaspoons good quality olive oil
Salt, to taste
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 F. Line rimmed cookie sheets (also called hotel pans) with parchment paper (see note below). Tear the leaves off the thick stems into chip-sized pieces. An easy way to do this is to fold the leaf in half and just rip toward the stem. Spread pieces out on cookie sheets. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle salt to taste. Bake 8 minutes or until edges are brown and kale is crispy when moved in pan.
If you don't have parchment paper, you can use aluminum foil (or neither). The idea here is to make clean up easy (just toss the paper and then you have less work to do) — but it's not crucial to the recipe.
Lisa Cain, Ph.D., writes about healthy snacks on Snack-Girl.com. She is a published author, mother of two and avid snacker. For more healthy snack recipes, check out Snack-Girl.com.
Comments
Kayla
01/14/2012 12:44 PM
Wouldn't there be fewer resources wasted if you just rinsed off the pan instead of using parchment paper/aluminum foil?
Just sayin'
motherlodebeth
01/20/2012 01:04 AM
Kayla its a toss up in some ways. One can save the parchment paper in the freezer and reuse for making more kale chips. Using hot water and soap to wash the pan also uses more resources when one looks at where the water comes from, the fuel used to heat the hot water etc. Have friends who use foil over and over and then recycle.
Personally I like not using parchment paper or foil and then simply wash the pan when I do other dishes. Being off the.... More
