Kale Chips Are Nutritious-Meets-Delicious

During a recent fruit and vegetable photo shoot for HGTVGardens, talk naturally turned to ways of cooking all of those delectable root vegetables, cherries, raspberries and greens we were misting and primping for their close-ups. I would hold up a bowling-pin evocative butternut squash and our HGTVGardens photographer Ben Rollins would declare, “butternut squash soup,” and describe the mouth-watering steps to achieve that cucurbit-nirvana. I shared my go-to recipe for an easy kale stew. But Ben really changed my life when he divulged his wife Ashley’s recipe for kale chips.

If you can stand the not altogether pleasant smell of the kale cooking, these crispy green chips are an ultra healthy way to swap out potato chips with something satisfyingly salty and crunchy.  With their earthly flavor, kale chips are not unlike roasted pumpkin or other squash seeds.  And they’re also absurdly easy to create.

The Rollins’ Family Kale Chips Recipe

• 1 bunch of kale (chopped)

• A very healthy drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

• Sea salt

• Pepper

Toss the ingredients together on a foil-covered cookie sheet.

Cook at 425 degrees for approximately 10 minutes, stir, then cook again for approximately 5 more minutes.

Turn off the oven and let the chips stay in the oven for another 5 minutes, watching carefully to make sure that they don’t burn.

Take out and eat!