Kale Chips

While I was looking for recipes to use up my leftover dino kale, I found this article from Saveur on "8 Great Recipes that Rocked the Internet".  One of the recipes is kale chips.  I've seen a lot of kale chips being sold at various supermarkets and even at a farmer's market.  I thought kale chips required a dehydrator, however it turns out that they only need 30 minutes of cooking in a low oven (250 F).  I had no idea that making kale chips was so simple!

I used a generous pinch of black pepper.  My pepper has a bite to it, so this simple flavoring was nicely spicy and satisfying.

Recipe modified from Bon Appetit

12 large dino kale leaves.
1 Tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 250 F.

While the oven is preheating, rinse the kale leaves and dry thoroughly (use a salad spinner or dry with a clean dish towel or paper towels).  Cut them lengthwise in half on one side of the center rib, and then remove the center rib from the other side.  Optionally you can consider cutting them in half lengthwise too; if you keep them long, they will be very dramatic but will break easily, so only a few of them will stay long.  Discard or compost the center rib.

Toss kale with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  You only want to use a little bit of olive oil--enough to just coat the leaves, since the kale leaves don't absorb the olive oil and will get oily if you coat them heavily.

Arrange leaves as spread out as possible on 2 baking sheets.  The leaves will be more crispy the more spread out they are, so preferably place them in a single layer, but it is okay to overlap a tiny amount if you need to.

Bake until crisp, about 30 minutes for flat leaves, and 33 minutes for wrinkled leaves.  Kale leaves burn easily, so start checking after 20 minutes.  I don't think it is necessary to stir or turn the kale, especially since the kale becomes very delicate and brittle as it gets crispy and is too easy to break to bother with turning; I didn't stir or turn my batch of kale while it was cooking and it came out evenly crispy for me.

Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.