Shatter-Crisp Baked Kale Chips with Cheesy Yeast Dust

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

Kale chips fail for two reasons: wet leaves and too much oil. This version fixes both — leaves dried until they squeak, barely a tablespoon of olive oil massaged in by hand, and a low 300°F oven that dehydrates rather than scorches. They come out translucent and glassy, snapping like a potato chip, then get showered with a savoury nutritional yeast dust that tastes like the inside of a bag of cheese puffs.

Ingredients

• 2 large bunches curly kale (about 10 oz / 285 g stemmed leaves)
• 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
• 1/8 tsp mustard powder (optional, for tang)

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 300°F (150°C) with racks in the upper-middle and lower-middle positions. Line two large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Strip the kale: hold the base of each stem and pull the leaf away with your other hand, or fold the leaf over and cut along the rib. Discard the stems. Tear the leaves into pieces roughly 2 to 3 inches across — they will shrink by about a third in the oven, so don't go smaller than a playing card.
3. Wash the torn leaves in a big bowl of cold water, then dry them ruthlessly. Spin in batches in a salad spinner, then spread on clean kitchen towels and blot both sides. Let them air-dry another 10 minutes if you have time; the leaves should feel dry and slightly papery, not cool and damp. Any water left on the kale turns to steam and gives you limp chips.
4. Whisk the nutritional yeast, salt, garlic powder, smoked paprika, cayenne and mustard powder together in a small bowl and set it by the stove.
5. Put the dry kale in a large dry bowl, drizzle over the olive oil, and massage with your hands for a full 60 seconds, rubbing each piece between your fingers until the leaves darken slightly and look barely glossy — no puddles in the bottom of the bowl. This is the whole trick: a thin, even film of oil and nothing more.
6. Spread the kale on the two sheets in a single layer with the pieces barely touching. Crowding traps steam. If you have more kale than space, bake in batches rather than piling it up.
7. Bake for 12 minutes, then swap the sheets between racks (and rotate each front-to-back) and bake 8 to 12 minutes more. The chips are done when they are pale-edged, brittle, and a piece lifted from the sheet crumbles at a light pinch. If any centres are still leathery, give them 3 more minutes and check again.
8. Slide the sheets onto racks and immediately sprinkle the yeast dust over the hot chips from about a foot above, tossing gently with your fingers so it clings. Let them cool on the sheets for 5 minutes — they crisp up further as they cool. Eat within a couple of hours for peak snap.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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