Oven-baked kale chips make the perfect keto snack! They are so crispy and flavorful. And yes, kale IS a proven superfood!
These kale chips are the best way I have found to eat this vegetable that’s very healthy, but tends to be coarse and bitter.
Roasting the kale leaves adds crunch and flavor and completely eliminates the bitterness and the coarse texture.
The ingredients needed for this recipe
You’ll only need four ingredients to make this healthy and tasty snack (exact measurements are in the recipe card below):
- Curly kale
- Olive oil
- Kosher salt
- Garlic powder
How to make kale chips
It’s easy! Scroll down to the recipe card for the detailed instructions. The basic steps:
- Tear cleaned and dried kale leaves into bite-size pieces.
- Coat with olive oil and sprinkle with spices.
- spread on a baking sheet and bake at 325°F until crispy.
How to make them crispy?
It’s tempting to speed things up by roasting the kale at a high temperature. But kale leaves burn easily.
To achieve a uniform crispness, I find that it’s best to bake the kale chips at a low temperature for slightly longer.
So instead of baking them for 20 minutes at 350°F, I prefer to bake them at 325°F for 25 minutes.
It takes a while for the kale leaves to become crispy, so you need to be patient. At first, they just wilt. But slowly and gradually, they become crispy.
Some of them get crispy faster. So you can start checking on them after 20 minutes and remove the ones that are done to a plate.
The very stubborn ones might take as long as 30 minutes to become truly crispy.
What to do with leftover kale chips?
I never have leftovers when making this recipe, so I can’t tell you if they keep well or not.
But like many homemade snacks that lack preservatives, I suspect that their crispness is relatively short-lived.
So I would advise you to only make as many as you are going to eat immediately.
Is kale really a superfood?
Kale is very healthy. A cup contains 14% of your daily calcium, 659% of vitamin A and 900% of your daily vitamin K. And cooked kale is high in iron.
This peer-reviewed study calculated the nutritional density score of various vegetables and fruit and concluded that kale is indeed a “nutritional powerhouse.”
However, its extremely high levels of potassium and vitamin K could be problematic for people with specific issues. And consuming large amounts of raw kale is probably not the best idea.
More tasty kale recipes
I make these kale chips often, because it’s pretty much the only way my picky eater will agree to eat kale, and I don’t blame her. Kale is bitter and is certainly an acquired taste.
If you do like kale, you should definitely try these tasty kale fritters. And this cheesy kale casserole is a healthy and filling main dish that I make quite often.
Baked Kale Chips
INGREDIENTS
- 1 bunch curly kale
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Wash the kale. Dry thoroughly, using a salad spinner, clean kitchen towels or paper towels. Cut off the stalks. Tear the kale leaves into bite-size pieces. After cleaning, you should end up with about 5 oz kale leaves.
- Place the kale leaves in a large bowl and toss with the olive oil. I use my hands to mix and make sure all leaves are well-coated.
- Spread the kale leaves in a single layer on two large baking sheets. Sprinkle with salt and garlic powder.
- Roast the garlic kale chips for 15 minutes. Remove the baking sheets from the oven. The kale leaves are not crispy yet, they are still limp, but getting there. Gently stir with a spatula to ensure even baking. Return the baking sheets to the oven, rotating their position. Roast the garlic kale chips for 10 more minutes, until the kale leaves are dry and crisp.
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Vered DeLeeuw, LL.M., has been following a healthy real-food diet and blogging about it since 2011. She has taken 
