At Home: Cheesy Kale Chips

Have you joined the kale band wagon yet?  Kale is one of the latest greens in the "super foods" craze and is super high in fiber, known to help lower cholesterol, and proven to lessen the risk of certain types of cancer.  It can be a bit bitter to eat raw, but it is easy to cook like you would spinach, by steaming or sautéing lightly with oil and garlic.  It can also be added to make your green smoothies.  Kale is pretty cheap compared to other greens, and we recently picked up a big bag for a couple bucks.  As my next experiment for What Micky Eats...At Home, Keith begged me to use up the rest of the kale and I decided to make Cheesy Kale Chips.

Cheesy Kale Chips

• 3-4 large kale leaves, cleaned, deveined, and chopped in large pieces.
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
• ½ teasp pepper

- Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- Spread about 1 Tbsp olive oil onto baking sheet.
- Lay kale leaves down on pan in single layer. Drizzle remaining olive oil onto kale, just enough to coat each leaf. Use pastry brush or fingers to spread onto leaves.
- Repeat with the soy sauce.
- Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and pepper.
- Spread seasonings into the oil and sauce using your fingers or pastry brush.
- Bake 15-20 minutes or until crispy.

The kale pieces are pretty thin once dried out, so keep an eye out to not burn them.  If you don't have soy sauce, you can simply replace with plain salt.  I thought the soy sauce would penetrate the kale better.  But it can easily get a little salty, especially with the Parmesan cheese, so don't overdo it.  Try other seasoning combinations too.  These kale chips are much thinner than a potato chip, but still make for a great snack.  I easily ate the whole bowl and didn't feel as guilty knowing this green super food was much healthier to eat than other prepackaged snacks.