Crispy Kale Chips - The Right Way!

Before last week I can't say that I had ever tried kale. While I was at a local juice bar with a friend, I decided to buy a bag of kale chips since I had been hearing so much about them from nearly everyone around me!  So I caved in and ate my first piece of kale ever and you know what... I actually really really liked it! Needless to say, I ate the whole bag in one sitting and with the price tag on most bags of kale chips I knew I needed to figure out how to make these bad boys myself. 

This recipe can vary in a million ways depending on the topping you choose. The most important thing with this recipe is to keep the cooking temperature VERY LOW. You are really trying to more or less dehydrate the kale in your oven, not cook it! If you go any higher than 250 degrees you are going to risk burning the chips. So keep it low and slow! 

Also when using the vinegar it's going to seem like a lot, but most of that flavor is going to burn off in the cooking process. So don't worry! 

Ingredients

Curly Leaf Kale - washed and patted dry with a paper towel

1 cup Sunflower Seed Kernels - deshelled (you just want the meaty inside) 

1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast 

3/4 - 1 cup White Vinegar

Sea Salt - to taste

Directions

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees and spray your baking sheets with baking spray or olive oil. In a food processor/blender or with a hand blender combine sunflower kernels, nutritional yeast, white vinegar and salt. Add more vinegar if needed to get a paste-like consistency. Once you have the right consistency toss kale with the topping you just made. I had to use my hands for this part to get everything evenly coated. Once you have the kale chips coated place them on your baking sheets side by side and cook them in the oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours until crispy.