Kale Chips

We're trying to eat healthier and buy less junk and more produce. This is a process since we're not used to eating lots of produce and we do like our junk food.

I've read about kale chips on various blogs, but I thought they sounded rather gross. However, I tried some at the farmers' market last week, and they're actually quite good! We went back to the stand that had kale and bought some to flat leaf kale to experiment with.  I also bought some curly leaf kale at the grocery store.

The flat leaf that I bought at the farmer's market:

The curly leaf that I bought at the grocery store:

I washed and dried the kale using my salad spinner, then tore them into small pieces.

I then drizzled olive oil, salt and seasonings over the kale and massaged the oil and seasonings in.

I spread the kale on cookie sheets.

And baked at 350 for 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes the flat leaf kale looked like this, so I think less time would have been better.

The curly leaf kale wasn't all crispy, so I left it in for a few more minutes. I'm not sure how much the different cookie sheets affected the outcomes, but I'm sure the stoneware slowed the cooking time on the curly leaf kale.

It's hard to tell, but these leaves are nice and crispy!

The verdict:
The flat leaf kale ended up super crispy and brown. I'm not sure if this was strictly because of the pan I used, or because of the variety of kale.

The curly leaf kale turned out better, but the larger pieces didn't crisp up as well- they took longer to cook. Next time I'll make sure all the pieces are smaller.

Less is more with the oil. I initially thought I didn't have enough oil, but went with what I'd seen others do and didn't add more. After cooking, the kale chips were a bit oily, so I definitely could have used less oil and still have had good results.

I'm going to make them again, but I'll do just one pan at a time, and I'll use less oil and more seasonings. One of the recipes I found said to mist the olive oil on- that's an idea to try, if I ever get an olive oil mister.

Have you tried kale chips? What did you think?