Whole30, Paleo, Vegan, & can be baked or dehydrated!
Today, I want to talk to you about kale chips. Not just any six-dollars-a-bag-so-I-feel-guilty-buying-them kale chips, but these totally delicious, make-at-home-on-the-cheap, Easy Tahini Garlic Kale Chips. These babies are perfect for those times you need a crunchy snack but still want to eat clean.
I want to point out you can make these Easy Tahini Garlic Kale Chips in an oven OR a dehydrator. I know lots of folks out there don’t have dehydrators laying around so I wanted to make sure this recipe worked both ways, and it does! Hooray for healthy snacks! The one difference between the methods is the amount of tahini sauce you’ll use, so see that in the notes below.
Moving on… I’ve tried many recipes for kale chips over the years, which often involve soaking cashews and blending them up to create the creamy sauce. While this is a super yummy method, I wanted to take some of the steps and time out of that process, so I went with tahini as my creamy base. If you’re not familiar, tahini is basically sesame seed butter. These days you can find it at most grocery stores; I know for sure Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Sprouts carry it, but you can also order some right here from Amazon!
As a member of the Amazon Affiliates program, I do get a small commission for anything you purchase through my links, but it doesn’t cost you anything extra—plus it helps support the blog!
There’s just something about turning kale into a chip that feels like pure, sneaky genius. I know I can’t take credit for this idea, it’s definitely been around the health-food space for quite some time, but it’s just such a good one! These Easy Tahini Garlic Kale Chips have a satisfying crunch with salty, savory flavors and you can eat them without a worry since they are nourishing that wonderful body of yours.
Now, let’s talk about kale. You really could use any kind but I think the curly varieties hold the sauce in their nooks and crannies a little bit more than a flat lacinato kale does.
Kale has become trendy in recent years, and I’m all for it. This pretty green leaf packs tons of nutrition and health benefits. As a member of the Brassica family of veggies, it’s got cancer-fighting and anti-inflammatory superpowers. Kale is also rich in vitamins K, A, and C. Those first two, vitamins A and K, are fat-soluble vitamins, which means eating your kale with some healthy fats like olive oil, salmon, or you guessed it—tahini—will help you better utilize the nutrients in your kale.
A quick word about vitamin K, as people seem to be talking about it more often. The chlorophyll in kale provides it with this important nutrient. It’s an essential vitamin for the blood clotting process and is also needed in order to use calcium to build bone.
For such a long time people seemed to focus solely on calcium, but calcium doesn’t work alone! Other vitamins and minerals (called cofactors in nutrition speak) are necessary for calcium to benefit the body, and vitamin K is one of them. And guess what? Tahini contains calcium and magnesium, thanks to sesame seeds, so you’re getting a tasty package of bone-supporting nutrients in these Easy Tahini Garlic Kale Chips.
By this point, you’re probably asking yourself “Well, crazy foodie lady, how can I make some of these for myself?”, and I will tell you right now.
The first step is making sure your kale is washed and really, really dry. Then tear it into large pieces. If you are going to bake them (as opposed to dehydrating) preheat your oven to 250°F. If you’re dehydrating, no preheat is necessary. Then, simply mix together your tahini, water, lemon juice, sea salt, pepper, and garlic until you have a thick sauce.
I suggest coating the kale in two batches since it takes up a lot of space, and I just didn’t have a bowl that big! Plus, this allows for more even distribution of sauce-to-kale.
A note about the sauce—the baked version of my Easy Tahini Garlic Kale Chips gets half as much tahini sauce as the dehydrated ones, because the lower, slower drying process allows for a thicker, crunchy coating to form.
This means the baked chips get 1 cup of tahini sauce and the dehydrated ones will take 2 cups. Just keep that in mind and use any extra sauce for dipping veggies throughout the week.
These are the ones going in the oven…
…and these are the ones going in the dehydrator
So, in two batches in a really large bowl (I actually used a big pasta pot), coat your kale with the sauce, using your hands to toss and rub the leaves, getting the tahini sauce alllll over each and every leaf. Then, depending on your cooking method, place the kale on a lined baking sheet or dehydrator tray, making sure the leaves don’t touch.
If baking, pop those baking sheets in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes until the thickest areas of sauce are dry and the kale is obviously crisp. Allow them to cool for a few minutes before serving.
If dehydrating, set your dehydrator at 110°F and walk away for 6 to 7 hours. Yep, this method takes a good bit longer! Such is the way of dehydrating. But I will say, the results are worth the wait—you get a more richly coated and crunchy chip.
That’s it! They may lose a little of their crunch after a day or so (if they last that long), but you can simply pop them back in the oven for a few minutes, or in the dehydrator for an hour or so, to crisp back up.
I just have to say how grateful I am for each and every one of you visiting my site! This blog is my baby and the fact that other people want to read my rambles and make my recipes truly warms my heart. Thank you! Hope you enjoy my Easy Tahini Garlic Kale Chips and please leave me a comment or rating if you can! I’m also happy to answer any nutrition and recipe questions you might have.
Looking for some other healthy but easy snacks? Check out my Paleo Protein Cookie Dough Bites or Exotic Green Smoothie Bowl.
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Salty, savory, crunchy kale chips are the perfect go-to when you’re feeling snacky and still want to eat clean! They’re Vegan, Paleo, and Whole30 approved.
Ingredients
- 2 big bunches curly kale, washed and dried really well
- 1 1/4 cups tahini (use raw if desired for dehydrating)
- juice of 3 lemons
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 1/4 teaspoons garlic powder
- See notes!
Instructions
- If using the oven, preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
- Tear washed/dried kale into large pieces.
- In a small bowl, combine tahini, lemon juice, water, sea salt, pepper, and garlic powder until thoroughly mixed into a thick sauce.
- Use 1 cup of sauce on kale chips if baking in the oven, use 2 cups if using the dehydrator.
- In two batches, coat kale in tahini sauce, then lay each kale leaf on a lined baking sheet or a dehydrator tray.
- If baking in the oven, bake for 30 to 35 minutes until the thickest spots of sauce are pretty dry and the kale is obviously crisp. If dehydrating, place trays in the dehydrator and set at 110 degrees F. Allow to dry for 6 to 7 hours until crispy.
Notes
- Keep in mind, the oven baked chips get 1 cup of sauce and the dehydrated ones get 2 cups. If going with the baked version, use the extra tahini sauce for dipping veggies for a healthy snack!
- The yield may vary, depending on the size of your bunches of kale.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 274
- Sugar: 1g
- Fat: 21g
- Carbohydrates: 17g
- Fiber: 5.5g
- Protein: 10g
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