I have never tried making Kale Chips with the Cavalo Nero variety and since I made a generous harvest this time round, I thought I’d give it a go. It also gave me a good excuse to try out my new food dehydrator – which might I add – works SO much better than using the wall oven. I don’t know why I never bought one before.

In terms of taste, the biggest thing I noticed when using this variety over the Dwarf Green Curled (which is my normal choice) is that these dry much thinner and ‘dissolve’ when you eat it – much like eating Nori. The Dwarf Green Curled variety on the other hand has much more integrity. Both taste great however.

This is a basic recipe that I use but it works well every time:

30 grams of nutritional yeast

50 grams of whole cashews, unsalted

half a medium red capsicum, roughly chopped

pinch of rock salt

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of water

130 grams of washed kale leaves (weighed after stems are removed)

Method:

Put all ingredients (except the Kale!) in a food processor and blend until it becomes a nice paste.

Drizzle the paste over the kale, and with your hands, rub the fragrant mix right through until every part of each leaf is coated well.

Lay them on the trays of a dehydrator set at 35 degrees celsius and dry for 5-6 hours.

You can also do the same in a conventional oven set to the lowest temperature setting for about 7-8 hours. Remember to turn each piece every hour to let the kale dry evenly.

This is the result: