Baked kale chips

I'm sure there are people who don't love kale, but I've never heard of them. We've wowed both of our families (vegan and non!) with these baked kale chips. They're perfect for snacking on while the rest of your dinner is cooking, or just eating whenever you want, without guilt. See below for the recipe!

Crispy crispy kale chips! (Try typing that without typing "cale" by accident...)

Ingredients

1 bunch kale
1/4 c + 1 tbsp raw cashews
1 tbs olive oil
1.5 tbs nutritional yeast
dash cayenne (or paprika if you don't want any spice)
salt, to taste (probably no more than 1/4 tsp)
2 tbs water

Preparation
Preheat oven to 250°F. Wash and dry the kale. Make sure it's fairly dry, you can stick it in the oven with the door open as it preheats to get any water off. Shred the kale away from the stem, and rip the leaves into medium-sized pieces (a little larger than bite-sized, as they'll cook down.

Process the cashews by themselves for 20-30 seconds, until they become powdery with some small pieces. Make sure to process until you see no more progress in breaking down the cashews, you want them to be as fine as possible. Add the olive oil, nutritional yeast, cayenne/paprika, and some salt. Process again, pushing down the mixture and pulsing to make sure everything is incorporated. The mixture will be fairly thick, so add the water one tablespoon at a time and process. Once the mixture thins out, it's up to you to taste & judge the flavor/consistency--you might want to add more nutritional yeast, salt, or water.

Place the kale into a large bowl. Scoop the cashew mixture out onto the kale leaves, and rub it into the leaves with your hands so that everything is covered with the mixture.

Pre-oven kale with cashew spread

Spread the leaves out onto a baking sheet (it will probably take 2 batches, with half going in first) and bake for 20m. Check the kale after 20 minutes, and remove any crispy pieces into a bowl. Spread the rest out, and bake for another 5-10 minutes, checking periodically to remove cooked pieces. Repeat with the second batch--you can snack on the first batch while the next one bakes!

We've also used things like smoked paprika and lemon juice in the cashew mixture to change the flavor a bit--it's pretty versatile! The kale cooks best if it's in the oven for a long time at a low temperature, or you could use a dehydrator if you wanted to make them raw, though we've never used one. 

Enjoy!