Krispy kale!

Maybe at first it doesn’t have quite the same appeal as Krispy Kreme.

I wanted to call this recipe Kale Crisps. I’m trying to catch the attention of the British audience who may not have had this treat that seems popular in the States at the moment. By using ‘crisps’ in the title I thought I might catch a few Brits. But say Kale Crisps more than once and you soon give up.

Go on, try it!

You’d start calling it The Kale Thing and that’s boring but I couldn’t blame you.

Of course I could just call it Baked Kale, as my sister called it when she first told me about it on my recent trip to Texas. But in an effort to be a bit zingy for the sake of the blog I thought I’d think some more. So then I thought I would go American retro on you and try out Krispy Kale. What about that? It does sound right, even if using a K in place of a C is a bit… cheesy.

Anyway, on to the recipe! If you haven’t tried this, do it just once. It’s crazy easy and way more healthy than crisps.

And there’s a cup of tea involved.

That caught you, didn’t it?

Krispy Kale

A bag or a big salad bowl full of kale

About 1-4 tablespoons of olive oil

Salt

Turn your oven on 180C/350F.

Line rimmed baking sheets with baking parchment.

Rip or cut the kale in bite size-ish pieces, discarding the thick stems. There’s a big stem in this photo.

Put it in a salad spinner and fill with water, then let it sit for a moment, loosening any soil, maybe swish it around. (Kitchen geek moment: if you don’t have a salad spinner, it is a worthy investment. I always thought they were One of Those Useless Kitchen Gadgets but no, I paid about £12 a couple of years ago and use it several times each week!)

Using the drainer part of the spinner, lift it out of the water, pour away the water, shake the drainer gently then place it back in the salad spinner bowl and spin, spin, spin, spin! Empty the water and do it again. And again, until you can’t spin any more water out of it.

Then place the kale on paper towels and gently press any remaining dampness off the leaves.

Place the kale in a nice big bowl–big enough so it isn’t all crammed in–or better yet, leave it all scattered on paper towel.

Now go boil the kettle and make a cup of tea.

Return to the kale about 30 minutes to an hour later. The reason the kale needs to be completely dry is because any amount of moisture on the leaves and the leaf will steam itself and not go crispy. Chewy Kale is not as exciting as Krispy Kale. I’ve tried it so you don’t have to.

Drizzle a bit of olive oil across the leaves and gently toss with your hands. Enough olive oil to mostly coat the leaves, but not so much that they are drowning in it. Too much olive oil and the leaves will take a lot longer to crisp up, if at all. See the previous point about Chewy Kale.

Arrange on the baking tray in one layer. Bake about 10-20 minutes, but check at about 10 minutes. Do not let the leaves go brown! Yuck.

When the kale leaves are crispy (or even krispy), then they’re done! Take them out and immediately salt them to your taste. If you wait too long the salt won’t stick.

You could try this with other seasonings as well (a sprinkling of caster sugar along with the salt is delicious), but be sure to do it as soon as they come out of the oven. And not before they go in the oven either.

Surprised that there is so little after such a large amount to start with? Well…I forgot I was taking photos of this event and when the Krispy Kale came out of the oven I started testing it…

It’s really More-ish.