Quickie BBQ Kale Chips

  • Curly kale, washed and torn into chunks, no big stems. Curly kale is the better choice due to its perky nature and the ability of its curls to hold the sauce.
  • Your favorite BBQ sauce, I used Annie’s Sweet & Spicy (gluten free) because the sweet edge complements the kale nicely.
  • Optional: a healthy sprinkle of nutritional yeast. Not neccessary but a very nice addition.
  1. Wash and spin the kale chunks in a salad spinner (or pillowcase method, or towel dry). Get as much water off as possible.
  2. In a very large bowl, drizzle BBQ sauce over the kale and work it onto every leaf but don’t overly massage the kale. It needs to maintain its sturdiness to withstand the heat of an oven.
  3. Now is the time to sprinkle on some nutritional yeast, once there’s some sauce for it to stick to. Toss lightly and sprinkle some more.
  4. If using an oven, preheat to warm or your lowest setting. I’ve seen some recipes that call for 350F but I was afraid I’d burn the kale because my tiny oven is so freaky. The warm setting took longer but nothing burned.
  5. Spread the kale on pa archment paper-lined baking sheet and pop in the oven.
  6. Check every five minutes and turn the chips when they start crisping up so they dry on both sides. I found that if I didn’t turn them, they sort of flattened to the pan and were difficult to remove later. My batch took about 15 minutes.

Serve with a good microbrew, very cold.