Recipe: Cheesy Kale Crisps

Okay! After a lot of requests from friends and family here is the recipe for Cheesy Kale Crisps. I love being creative in the kitchen but these days the first question I am asked is not “How are you?” but “What are you making?” or “What can I eat?!” To be honest, I secretly quite like it as I’m the normally the first one to get out all my tubs of food and force-feed whoever happens to have popped round. I have turned into a FEEDER! A healthy one though!

I am WARNING you – these Cheesy Kale Crisps are more addictive than Pringles AND they are a trillion times healthier! I made some to take to the cinema last night and gave my friend responsibility of holding them in the car. Big mistake! Huge! She made the fatal, fatal error of dipping her thieving little fingers into the tub about a minute into the journey and then it was game over, she couldn’t stop! Thankfully, she did manage to refrain from eating them all, only after I confiscated them though!

Here’s how to make them.

Cheesy Kale Crisps

There are many different varieties of Kale so use whichever you have available but make sure you get rid of the tough stem as it’s not that nice.

• 3 cups tightly –packed kale
• 3 tbl olive oil
• 1 tbl Himalayan crystal salt or Celtic sea salt

Cheese Topping

• 1 red bell pepper
• Juice of 1½ lemon
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp paprika
• 1 cup cashew nuts
• 1 tbl nutritional yeast (optional – this gives it more of a cheesy flavour but isn’t vital)

Strip the kale from its tough centre stem and combine in a bowl with the olive oil and salt. Massage the leaves with your hands until all leaves are covered. Set aside. (Don’t throw away the stems – they are full of juicy goodness so use them in a juice !)

In a food processor, mix the cheese topping ingredients until it forms a smooth mixture. Drain any excess liquid from the kale and pour in the cheese mixture. Mix again with your hands until all leaves are coated with the cheese. Lay the leaves out on a Paraflexx sheet and dehydrate at 105°F for 12-18 hours until crispy. (If you don’t have a dehydrator, place kale onto a baking tray and leave in the oven on the lowest setting with the door ajar until all leaves are crispy.)

As you can see, these crisps nearly didn't even make it to a bowl!

Geek Time: You can eat these in the knowledge that you are eating a super healthy snack because Kale is a highly nutritious vegetable with powerful antioxidant properties and is thought to be anti-inflammatory. (Inflammatory conditions create disease so we need to eat as many anti-inflammatory foods as possible.)

It is packed full of beta-carotene, vitamin K (how could it not? It’s Kale afterall!), vitamin C, calcium and contains potent anti-cancer properties.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. I have no doubt that you will!

xxx

Tagged as: crisps, kale, raw food, recipes, snacks