Cheesy Calcutta Kale Chips Recipe! | Solluna by Kimberly Snyder (2024)

FAQs

Why are my homemade kale chips bitter? ›

Don't turn up the heat. High heat can burn the kale and make it taste bitter.

Arrange kale on two rimmed baking sheets. Drizzle evenly with olive oil and toss. Season with salt. Bake, rotating trays once, until crisp, 12 to 15 minutes.

Made by quickly tossing together three simple ingredients – fresh kale, olive oil, and flaked sea salt – and baked low and slow for only 20 minutes, these crispy kale chips are easy to make, there are no mystery additives, and even fussy eaters snap them up.

To get perfectly uniform, crispy kale chips, the key is to bake them for longer, at a lower temperature. Baking kale chips at 300F for 20 to 25 minutes allows the vegetable to slightly dehydrate while it cooks, resulting in a perfectly crispy chip.

To keep them crispy, it is important to let them cool completely. Once cooled, they can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for 2-3 days. You could also try adding a few grains of raw rice or silica packs (like those found in store-bought kale chips) to the airtight container. & Perfect for snacking!

And unlike potato chips, kale retains its nutritional value when made into chips. Kale is high in fiber, antioxidants, vitamin A and calcium, as well as B vitamins, vitamin C and potassium. It's fat- and sodium-free, and the minuscule amounts of olive oil and salt used in my recipe barely bump up those amounts.

Kale contains a large amount of fiber, which is great for digestion but can be dangerous if you eat too much. If you overeat on kale chips (or any food) then you may experience bloating, gas, and constipation due to the excessive intake of fiber.

Curly Kale

These crinkly, ruffled leaves are found bunched together in nearly every supermarket in the United States. Curly kales are distinctively mild-flavored and easy to cook with. These types are most commonly used for chips, green smoothies, and pestos.

Rinse and dry the kale leaves before removing most of the centre stalk, leaving long, thin pieces of kale. Toss the kale in the oil, then sprinkle with the sugar, cinnamon and ½ tablespoon of sea salt. Arrange the leaves in a single layer on a couple of baking trays and bake for 5 minutes, until crisp.

Baked kale, such as the popular snack kale chips, does have nutrients left. Many people consume kale by adding it to salads, blending it in smoothies and using it in soups. Snacking on kale chips has even become a healthier alternative to eating regular potato chips, which is one of the benefits of kale chips.

Can you vacuum seal kale chips? ›

Dehydrating the Kale Chips

Dry the kale at 145 F / 63 C for 1 hour. Reduce the heat to 115 F / 46 C and dry for an additional 3 to 4 hours until crispy dry. Transfer to airtight containers, or vacuum seal for longer storage.

It's hearty and tough, for one, but it also boasts a bittersweet pungency that some find off-putting. In cooked applications (like our Roasted Kale with Garlic, Red Pepper Flakes, and Lemon) that assertive flavor is no big deal—kale's flavor mellows significantly with cooking.

Add Sweet to Kale: Sweet foods go well with kale because they counter its rather bitter taste. Serve curly kale up as a salad with simple ingredients like a blood orange, mango and slivered almonds or apple, feta and toasted walnuts or cook kale up with caramelized onion.

Does massaging kale make it less bitter? The process of softening kale also helps to reduces the vegetable's bitterness by releasing bitter compounds. Some claim that massaged kale therefore needs to be rinsed before eating, since the bitter compounds may stay on the leaves after they have been released.