Dried kale is KALEtastic!

Dehydrated Kale Chips!

I made more yummy kale chips today! After they were done I think I ate an entire bunch of kale while lounging on the couch, they were so good! As I was lazing around today I thumbed through the latest issue of 'whole living.' The November issue says that kale increases sulfur levels in the colon and helps the body ward off environmental toxins. At this rate I probably won't have toxins of any kind in my body!

Kale is a new thing to me. My sister-in-law loves it and I've always nicely smiled and eyed the lettuce. Now I can't get enough of it. It started with a friend making me a fresh kale dish with toasted sunflower seeds, steamed dino kale, olive oil and braggs. Then I got a dehydrator and started seeing online how you can make kale chips. Nutritious and they help curb the urge for crunchy things.

The ones I made today are tangy and sweet. Half the batch I used honey and the other half had more lemon juice. Here is the recipe I used.

2 bunches of curly kale
olive oil
braggs
lemon juice
salt
honey

I pulled the leaves off the stem, hold the stem in one hand and slider your fingers down the stem, pulling off the leafy part. Whatever stem is left is fine.

Wash kale well.

Pull kale pieces apart into smaller pieces.

In a large bowl toss the kale pieces with the olive oil, braggs, lemon juice, salt and honey. I didn't measure the wet stuff. I just drizzled the olive oil to coat the kale well, drizzled less braggs. I squeezed a total of 3 lemons for the 2 bunches. If you wanted yours less tangy you could do 2 lemons. Salt to taste.

In half the batch I drizzled it with honey and tossed. The other half I just had the other stuff.

I have a round Nesco dehydrator, I placed the pieces on clean screens over the trays. At the top I added an empty tray because the kale was so fluffy it was hitting the top of the machine.

I started the dehydrator at 145 degrees for an hour. I then took extra trays and alternated, kale tray, empty tray, kale tray, empty tray to allow more air flow. I lowered the temperature to 115 degrees and let it go for another 3 hours. Result? Yummy kale chips!

The clean screens are so great! The first batch of kale I did stuck to the trays, I ended up with a lot of crumbled up dried kale bits. The only downside is because the clean screens have smaller holes, the air flow is not as good; thus the idea to add the empty trays in between. I think it really helped evenly dehydrate the kale and much faster.