These Sweet and Salty Kale Chips make a quick, simple and low-calorie snack at about 118 kcal per serving.
I was a late convert to kale. Until recently it only turned up as part of a roast dinner. Then I started adding kale to green smoothies and my rainbow smoothies and it quickly became a staple. I once tried substituting lettuce in a smoothie — big mistake. Don’t try it.
One quiet morning, after the kids had gone back to school and I’d been out for a run, a snack craving hit. I wanted something sweet and salty but lighter than a biscuit or a chocolate bar. I’d thought of popcorn, but I didn’t have any. Then the idea of sweet and salty kale chips came to me.
I’d seen plain and salt-and-vinegar kale chip recipes online, but I wanted something different. I prepared the kale the usual way — massaging a little olive oil into the leaves and baking them on a low temperature until crisp. They were good, but the addition of salt and sugar made them irresistible.
I worried that sprinkling granulated sugar onto hot, crisp kale would feel like biting into grains of sugar, and that cooking the sugar with the kale might make the leaves chewy. To avoid both problems I used a mix of caster (super-fine) sugar and icing (powdered) sugar. The result was light, crisp and perfectly balanced between sweet and salty. I finished a whole bowl in one sitting and immediately planned to buy more kale.
Since I’m in the UK, I considered calling them “crisps” instead of “chips,” but the name kale chips stuck. They’re an easy, satisfying snack when you want something crunchy without many calories.
Sweet and Salty Kale Chips Recipe:
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Sweet and Salty Kale Chips
5 minutes
15 minutes
20 minutes
Ingredients
- 150 g curly kale any tough stalks removed
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tbsp caster sugar
- ½ tbsp confectioners powdered sugar
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 135°C (275°F). Wash the kale, dry it thoroughly with kitchen paper and remove any tough stalks so you have only the tender leaves. Place the leaves in a large bowl and drizzle over the olive oil. Gently massage the oil into the leaves so they are evenly coated. Divide the kale in a single layer between two metal baking trays and bake for about 15 minutes, until crisp.
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Remove the trays from the oven; the kale will have shrunk. Transfer the kale to a serving bowl and sprinkle over the salt and caster sugar. Toss gently so the seasoning is distributed, then dust with the confectioners’ sugar just before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.