Name: VEGAN CHEESE AND ONION KALE CRISPS
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Ingredients: 360 g curly kale; 2 Tbsp coconut oil; 1/2 tsp onion powder; 1/2 tsp nutritional yeast

Looking for a new snacking option? Try out our vegan cheese and onion kale crisps! These tasty crispy kale leaves are great for movie nights, buffets, or even as a lunchbox snack. Not only will you be upping your vegan game by eating kale, but you’ll also be living up to the leaf-eating stereotype.

The recipe is super easy, with just a bit of chopping and mixing before baking. Plus, it’s a cost-effective snack since kale isn’t expensive. If you don’t have nutritional yeast in your vegan spice rack yet, it’s worth adding as a cheese substitute and flavour booster for many meals, like pasta sauces. For more plant-based snack ideas, check out our roasted pumpkin seeds recipe.

Kale Crisps Ingredients

360 g curly kale

2 Tbsp coconut oil

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp nutritional yeast

Kale Crisps Recipe

Start by washing all of your curly kale, using a colander, running it under cold water and gently turning it all over and over. Once you are content that the kale has been well-rinsed, you should make the effort to dry the leaves as best you can. We would suggest laying out a couple of tea towels on your kitchen worktops, spreading the leaves out over them, folding the towel once over and lightly pressing the leaves, allowing the water to be soaked up by the tea towels. Wet kale will make soggy snacks, so this is a worthwhile step.

The next step in preparing the kale is to sift through your dried leaves and pull out all the stems that you can find. It will not matter how much you season a stalk, it will not make for a pleasant snack.

Now would be a good time to preheat your oven, and it does not need to be too hot, 190°C / 170°C Fan / 375°F / Gas Mark 5 should mean a cook time of approximately 15 minutes. If you have not been keeping your coconut oil at room temperature, and it’s solid, then scoop some into a microwaveable bowl and warm it up 10 seconds at a time, until it’s just melted into a liquid. In a bowl large enough to place all of the kale leaves, add two tablespoons of coconut oil and with your hands, lightly mix the kale with the oil, ensuring that all the leaves are coated.

Prepare a couple of baking trays with parchment paper, and take a handful of leaves at a time, laying them out onto the trays, and taking care not to have any overlapping or touching one another. This will help to ensure that all the leaves cook evenly, and everything crisps up as it should. Prioritize this over trying to fit all of your kale into the oven in one bake, it’d be fine to cook in a couple of batches and ensure a crispier finish. Before you put the kale into the oven, mix half a teaspoon of onion powder and half a teaspoon of nutritional yeast in a small bowl and then sprinkle evenly, all over the oil-coated leaves.

Now place your baking trays into the oven, and set a timer for 15 minutes. We would suggest that around the halfway point though you check to see if you need to spread out any leaves, or you may want to turn them over, and if you see a reason to you can even move the trays around in your oven to ensure all your chips have the same great texture.

When the timer sounds, remove your new healthy snacks from the oven, and let them cool before eating them. If you don’t manage to get through them all in your first sitting as well, use air-tight ziplock bags to keep them crunchy and ready for the next movie night. Also if you’re looking for another night in plant-based snacks, check out our recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds.