Vegan Cheezy Kale Chips

Insanely healthy vegan chips. It's snack time!

After completing the Clean Program a few months ago, my two pitfalls have been dessert and snacks. Dessert has been fun and challenging. Gluten-free baking is fairly easy, but gluten-free baking sans eggs and sugar, not so much. It's been interesting and challenging, but I've found some great substitutes and am fairly content with how my recent Clean recipes have come out.

Snacks on the other hand have been tough. Before Clean I was a tortilla chip and gluten-free pretzel fanatic. Sad to say those are no longer part of my diet (although my waistline I'm sure is happy, my tastebuds are not). I've been searching and searching for snacks that are healthy and Clean. I've found Mary's Gone Crackers which I've grown to love. Of course there is my oh so classic apple and almond butter. Then there are always brown rice chips and other seeds chips that are Clean, but they're just not as good and still aren't as healthy as I would like.

Almonds. Hazelnuts. Walnuts. Pecans.

All four have become a standard in my daily diet. A small handful of nuts before a workout is perfect, but I've been craving something more satisfying and I can eat by the handful and not feel guilty. Enter, kale.

Finally, the search is over. I've found it.

The complete guilt-free snack I've been craving.

Kale. I love kale. This dark, leafy vegetable is probably one of the healthiest foods on the planet. It's packed with tons of vitamins and minerals, and is super tasty too. I use kale in a ton of different ways, like my Thai Coconut Curry Chicken Soup, as a bed for salads, in pasta sauces and stir-frys. Any which way kale is used, it's alway delicious and just eating it makes you feel healthier.

I'd seen them on the shelf at the store, but have never stopped to taste them. Kale chips are usually sold in chip-like bags in the natural foods asile of most grocery stores. They look yummy, but for some reason I had never thought to buy them. It wasn't until I was searching for snacks on the Clean Program website that I discovered how easy these chips are to make!

Super yummy and crispy kale chips.

A bit of nutritional yeast and you've got a fab vegan snack on your hands.

Vegan Cheezy Kale Chips

This is my second batch and this time I decided to dehydrated them. The first time around I simply baked them and although it was much faster, the crispiness didn't last over night. So, what is the best way to dry food out and keep them crispy? Dehydration, of course.

I don't have a dehydrator, but I figured I could just do it in the oven. It takes a long time, but the wait is well worth it. The chips remain crispy and delightful. Yum.

ingredients:

• 1 bunch purple kale
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Nutritional yeast
• Salt

To dehydrate kale in the oven, preheat it at the lowest temperature setting it has. Mine is 150 degrees F, but many modern stoves have warm settings that are as low as 110 degrees F.

Rinse the kale and remove it from the stem. Rip the leaves into bite size pieces and place them on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt and place them in the center of the oven.

Leave the oven door open and use a fan to circulate the air even better (place it pointing into the oven). Let them sit until they are your desired crispiness. Mine took about two and a half hours. 

When the chips are dried out and crispy, pull them out of the oven and drizzle them with olive oil. Carefully, very carefully, toss the chips around with your hands to coat them with oil. Sprinkle with as much nutritional yeast and you would like and fluff them again. Transfer to a bowl or zip lock bag.

Makes about 5 or 6 cups of chips depending on the size of the bunch of kale.