Ultimate Cheesy Kale Chips

This was until I saw the hilarious and beautiful Laura Miller’s Raw. Vegan. Not Gross on Tastemade where she made kale chips that looked better than my favourite bagged version. Since adapts her raw recipes to a conventional oven at a low temperature for those who do not own dehydrators (like myself) I don’t think they can be considered completely “raw food” since it is above 118 degrees. No matter since she is all about flexibility and just wanting people to incorporate these foods into your diet. I couldn’t agree more.

People have this weird internal dilemma that they have to do all or nothing and this approach will fail because it is just too much pressure on you. Please let me assure you that you cannot do everything but you can always do something and something is always better than nothing. It is just about incorporating these foods into your diet and not about going totally raw.

Making substitutions in your diet is important but you cannot be expected to do these things all at once so start small; add those tomatoes to your salad, throw some spinach in your fruit smoothie and swap those potato chips for these awesome kale ones. Believe me when I say you will prefer these to Lay’s any day and they are a zillions times better for you. Mark mentioned that they kind of reminded him of Doritos (he use to looove those chips) but he likes the kale chips better and they don’t turn his fingers bright orange (Double win!).

My recipe is a cheesier and smokier version of Laura Miller’s Kale Chips featured on Raw.Vegan.Not Gross. In case you haven’t seen her hilarious episodes I watch all of them on Youtube.

• 1 bunch of green kale, rinsed and dried through a salad spinner or dish towel
• 1 cup raw cashews, soaked for 5-8 hours or quick soaked (bring water in a pot to a boil, add cashews, put tight fitting lid on the pot and take it off the heat. Let the cashews soak in the hot water for about 1 hour)
• 1 red bell pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 small chipotle pepper in adobo sauce or 1/2 teaspoon ancho chili powder (this amount makes the chips relatively spicy. Omit if you don’t like spicy food)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line a few baking sheets with parchment paper.

Remove the rough stems of the kale and then tear the kale into larger “chip sized” pieces. You don’t want them to be too small.

In a blender add all the ingredients except for the kale and blend until smooth. In a large bowl add the kale and sauce and massage the kale so it is completely covered with the sauce. Place the kale, piece by piece onto the baking sheets so they don’t overlap, this is what helps them become crispy.

Bake for 90 minutes (yes really 90 minutes but worth the wait), flipping the kale halfway through and rotating the sheets in the oven so the heat is distributed evenly. It may appear the smoke is coming out of your oven but it is steam. This is the first time I have ever made anything at such a low temperature but I will always make kale chips this way.