How to make delicious kale chips in the dehydrator

Okay, confession time: I’m currently on my fourth batch of these. I like them better than bacon. BETTER THAN BACON. Even while I know I could end up the product of broken home after this, abandoned by Greg and Jason, scorned by my family, but it’s true! I can’t deny it! They are freaking delicious. 

I got my recipe from  a post on the forum Raw Food Talk, and the original recipe is called Chrissy’s Goddess Chips. Be sure to read her directions too. I didn’t have a few of her ingredients though, so I ended up with a  different, more bare bones version that looks like this: 

Dehydrator Kale Chips

3/4 c sesame tahini 
1/2 c apple cider vinegar
1/2 c water
1/4 cup nama shoyu
1 lemon, juiced

1.) Stick all this in a blender and whip it up until it looks like a dressing you’d put over salad. It should be somewhat runny. If not, if it’s very thick, add a little more water. I haven’t had to add water yet, but other recipes suggest it. 

2.) Prep the kale: rinse it to get any dirt off, and then pat or shake dry. Then what I do is lay a leaf in front of me on the cutting board, fold the leaf over so that the spine is sticking out, and then take a sharp knife and slice that spine right out. I do this for all the leaves, and I’m using the Lacinato Kale*, so it’s pretty easy to do. Then slice the kale crosswise into strips, about the width of bacon. Muhahaahahaha. 

You want to slice the spines out because if you don’t, they dehydrate into LITTLE TWIGS, which aren’t fun to pick out of your teeth. 

3.) Then I put the dressing in a big bowl, and put the kale strips in the big bowl, and use my hands to mix it all up. 

4.) Place the strips on the dehydrator sheets, on the Teflex sheets over the mesh. Don’t pile them up, make sure they’re all separate from each other, although they can be close. The strips will drip a little – try to shake them off a bit before you put them on the sheet, although there will be some drip there too. That’s okay. 

5.) Put the dehydrator on at 110 degrees, and set a timer for 4 hours. 

So far my batches have been going almost exactly 4 hours, which has been great. The exception was when I made the marinade in advance, at night, and then tried to make the kale chips the next morning. The marinade was a lot thicker than I realized (that’s the batch in the photos above and below), and it really stuck to the leaves. It took about 6 hours to get completely crisp, and even then the flavor was more intense than I’d like. Next time I’ll thin it with water if I do that, or whip it up for a few minutes and get it nice and warm. 

These are easy to make and taste fantastic. I eat them right off the trays as they’re coming out. Then I put them in a glass container, sealed, and in the fridge. VERY IMPORTANT TO STORE KALE CHIPS IN THE FRIDGE. If you don’t, they wilt and get moist (ick). If you keep them cold, they stay crisp and delicious. TRUST ME. 

I eat them all the time, whenever I want a snack, but I think they’re especially good to eat for breakfast, with a banana on the side. 

Another recipe for kale chips I haven’t tried is here. 

* The last bunch I got was organic, from  PCC, and just the one bunch was HUGE. It took up the entire 9 trays of the dehydrator.