Use Your Dehydrator to Make Crunchy Kale Chips (2024)

Crunchy dehydrated kale chips are addictive, yet great for you. They are a much healthier option than deep-fried potato chips, but they can be expensive to buy at the store. You can make them at home easily and cheaply with your food dehydrator. Raw food enthusiasts can use a low-temperature method that yields a raw food product.

If you don't have a dehydrator, you can use the oven method to make kale chips fasteror use a warm oven to dehydrate them. Be aware that the kale will shrink quite a bit during drying, so you can keep the pieces larger and make more than you think you will need.

Use Your Dehydrator to Make Crunchy Kale Chips (1)

What You’ll Need To Make This Kale Recipe

A Versatile Vacuum Sealer

A Reliable Food Dehydrator

An Efficient Salad Spinner

Ingredients

1 large bunch kale (any variety)
2 to 3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
Dash cayenne pepper, optional
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast, optional
See Also
How Do You Get the Bitterness Out of Kale?Kale Chips: Weighing the Good and the Bad Kale: From Leaves to Chips How to Make Kale Chips

Steps to Make It

There are a couple of steps in making kale chips. The first is to prepare the kale. Then, you have a couple of choices in how you dehydrate them.

Making the Kale Chips

Gather the ingredients.
To prepare the kale, strip the leaves away from the leafstalks and tough midribs. You don't want to dry the whole leaves, as the midribs will end up with the consistency of twigs, and they are not tasty. Compost the leafstalks or save for soup stock.
Wash the kale leaves and dry them well in a salad spinner or by gently rolling the leaves in a clean dish towel.
Tear the washed and dried leaves into just slightly larger than chip-sized pieces; they will shrink slightly as they dry.
Toss the kale in a large bowl with the extra-virgin olive oil and the salt. Massage the leaves well with your clean hands. All of the leaves should be more or less evenly coated with the oil.
If you like spicy flavors, add a dash of cayenne pepper.
See Also
Baked Kale Chips
You could also addnutritional yeastfor a cheesy flavor.
Spread the leaves on the dehydrator trays in single layers. Do not crowd the leaves, or they will not dry evenly. It is alright if the leaves touch, but they shouldn't overlap too much.
Now dehydrate the chips.

Dehydrating the Kale Chips

This method doesn't result in chips that qualify as raw food, but the result is still very good and ready in half the time of the low-temperature method below.

Dry the kale at 145 F / 63 C for 1 hour.
Reduce the heat to 115 F / 46 C and dry for an additional 3 to 4 hours until crispy dry.
Transfer to airtight containers, or vacuum seal for longer storage. Enjoy.

Low-Temperature Raw Food Method

Use this dehydrating step for your kale chips to be considered raw food.

Dry the kale at 110 F / 43 C for about 8 hours (overnight or while you're at work).
Transfer to airtight containers, or vacuum seal for longer storage.
Enjoy.

Tips

Lacinato kale, also called dinosaur kale, is a bit harder to coat evenly with the oil, but seems to keep its crunch longer once dehydrated.
After washing your kale, make sure it is nice and dry before coating with oil.Any water left can make your kale chips soggy.
If your kale chips lose their crunch in storage, you can re-crisp them in a low (200 F/93 C) oven for 10 minutes; or in the dehydrator at 110 F/43 C for an hour.
Some people prefer to dry the kale simply sprinkled with salt, without tossing it in olive oil or massaging the kale before drying. If you do so, you can sprinkle the kale with oil and season the chips after drying.

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Nutrition Facts (per serving)
44	Calories
4g	Fat
3g	Carbs
1g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories	44
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 4g	5%
Saturated Fat 0g	2%
Cholesterol 0mg	0%
Sodium 409mg	18%
Total Carbohydrate 3g	1%
Dietary Fiber 1g	4%
Total Sugars 1g
Protein 1g
Vitamin C 21mg	107%
Calcium 38mg	3%
Iron 0mg	3%
Potassium 119mg	3%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Recipe Tags:

kale
kale chips
snack
american