Homemade Seasoned Crispy Kale Chips Recipe (Dehydrator or Oven-Baked)

Please enjoy these highly-addictive, uber-healthy, homemade crispy kale chips. They're easy to make in either a food dehydrator or baked in the oven, and stay crunchy in storage! I’ll share our favorite seasoning combinations, but this kale chip recipe is highly customizable. Use whatever seasonings you like or have!

Prep time: PT30M

Rating

4.75 stars (27 reviews)

Keywords

Baked kale chips, Crispy kale chips, dehydrated kale chips, Kale chips, seasoned kale chips

Ingredients

1 bunch fresh kale (about 12 leaves)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt (or seasoned salt), to taste
other optional seasonings, sprinkled over to taste (recommendations include garlic powder, onion powder, nutritional yeast, chili powder, turmeric or curry powder, cumin, lemon powder, everything-but-the-bagel seasoning, and/or black pepper)

Steps

Wash, dry (pat dry or use a salad spinner) and de-stem the kale.
Tear or cut the kale up into chip-size pieces, about 2 by 2 inches.
Add the kale pieces to a mixing bowl. Drizzle over about 1/2 to 1 tbsp of olive oil per average bunch of kale. The goal is to evenly coat every piece with a small amount of oil, but not have any excess dripping off or pooling in the bowl.
Toss everything well with tongs (or similar) until all of the kale pieces are evenly and lightly coated with oil.
Sprinkle over sea salt and other seasonings of choice, to taste. (I like to lightly dust the kale with a small amount of seasonings first, toss well, dust again, toss, repeat. That way, the seasonings get evenly distributed over all of the kale chips, rather than stuck to only the top layer.)
If you’re using a food dehydrator, lay out the kale pieces on your dehydrator trays. To dry them in the oven, place the kale pieces on a baking sheet (parchment paper recommended). Either way, arrange the kale chips next to each other but not overlapping.
Dry your homemade kale chips in a food dehydrator on 125°F for about 2 hours, or until they are completely crispy dry. If your food dehydrator doesn’t have a precise temperature setting, choose the “vegetable” setting or other medium-low heat option. By the end, they should crunch and crumble and no longer bend, signaling they are done.
In the oven, bake the kale chips on 225°F for about 25 to 30 minutes – or until the chips are crispy, but not burnt. Low and slow is the key when making kale chips in the oven!
Enjoy your homemade crispy kale chips! Store any leftovers in an air-tight container. For maximum crunch, enjoy within 4 or 5 days.

Reviews

Maggie on 2026-01-31 (5 stars):
I made kale chips for the first time using this recipe! We bought an air fryer that also has a dehydrating mode, and we have a farm produce subscription that gets delivered every other week. I wanted to make use of all the kale I was receiving, and this has been a very tasty way of doing that. I seasoned it with nutritional yeast, salt, garlic powder and cumin. The nutritional yeast is really the power player here. Thank you for a new favorite homemade snack! I've now made it four times and it's a big hit with my husband.
Kate on 2024-09-12 (5 stars):
I'm no newbie when it comes to making kale chips, but I usually just wing it and end up with them being either soggy or charred into carbon. I figured perhaps that was a sign to, you know, actually follow a recipe, and after a preliminary Google search, I realized I should see if my favorite blog (hint - that's Homestead and Chill) had a recipe for these, and sure enough! Okay - that was enough of a preamble. These are incredible. I used my oven, and they are perfect - crispy but not burnt, packed with flavor (I used nutritional yeast, garlic power, turmeric, and black pepper). I'm glad I have plenty of kale growing right now as this current batch will be gone fast!
Christine on 2024-07-29 (5 stars):
I'll say I was skeptical when starting to make these, but I have a TON of kale in my garden that I hate to see wasted, so had nothing to loose. I used a Harissa olive oil, which is spicy, then seasoned with wood fired garlic powder, salt and an adobo Mexican seasoning. Dried in my dehydrator for just over 2 hrs. Darn, these are tasty! Will be making more with my harvest for sure.
Courtney on 2024-06-14 (5 stars):
Super simple and super tasty way to use up all the extra kale from the garden or the CSA box. I love any excuse to use the dehydrator!
Regina Bishop on 2022-06-14 (5 stars):
Hello again. Well my second batch of kale I seasoned with cumin and turmeric and pink salt. They both taste pretty good but I think I'm going to like the 1st one better. I'm sorry about those typos in the first message please go ahead and fix them if you can thank you God bless you you look beautiful thanks to your gardening and your wonderful food I know,I know that's why. I've been striving to get well from nutrition for a long time. I just decided to do the keto diet I have about 25 lb to lose so hopefully that will help me I'm going to use the kale because I'm in dialysis and you get real sick after they drain all your nutrients out of you so I'm going to take the kale with me. We'll see if that helps. be blessed
Regina Noreen Bishop on 2022-06-13 (5 stars):
Hi hello I'm so excited I had purchase two bunches of kale that I had to go in the hospital but they still good and today it's 2:56 in the morning I'm making my kale. I imagine I'll have to do two batches in the dehydrator cuz one batch took up four trays I tasted it and I put salt pepper and he's done I used a tablespoon of yeast pinches all in a little bit of pepper and boy is it delicious that's before I even cooked it I can't wait till it gets done I've tried them in the store before I do love them but this time I'm making them thanks to your recipe I'm very happy God bless you for all your help amen
Nicole Novak on 2021-01-24 (5 stars):
Well, wowee zowee I decided to use the dehydrator method this time instead of the oven because it dawned on my pea brain that I could stack a lot more kale on 9 trays and just set it and forget it. I wasn’t concerned about the 2 hour time recommendation so I went to bed at about 1 and woke up at 8. It’s perfect! Not only that but it’s prettier—maintains the collard green much better than the oven. Cleanup is easy too. Just shake off the excess salt and away you go! My collard tree is huge and gives me tons of leaves so it’s nice to have a recipe like this!
Sarah on 2020-07-15 (5 stars):
Have made these twice and they came out perfectly! The nutritional yeast was delicious along with some Penzey’s onion and garlic powders. My very skeptical husband tried to eat all of them when he realized how delicious they were. Thank you!!!
Laura on 2020-07-11 (5 stars):
This makes perfect kale chips. Listen when Momma Deanna tells you to NOT use too much oil (this is where I’ve failed in the past). I used the oven method and needed 26 minutes to really crisp-ify my two sheets of kale, with no over-browning. I used some kosher salt and Mrs Dash seasoning, and they were very satisfying!
Courtney on 2020-06-09 (5 stars):
These are FANTASTIC! My boyfriend has always hated kale, but will eat them if they're Deanna's chip recipe. I brought them to a BBQ this weekend and they were the first gone - out of 6 hour smoked ribs, corn, pasta salad and greens. Will be making again ASAP.
Carol Rogan on 2020-06-01 (5 stars):
Thank you so much for this great recipe!! We made these and they were so good and the crunch was amazing! We baked them in the oven and used sea salt and chili- lime seasoning. I really appreciate all the little details you put into the recipe, for someone like me that needs every detail I can get when trying something new, your directions were perfect and so were our chips, we ate them all pretty quickly :) We are looking forward to making them again this week and trying the nutritional yeast on them. Thanks again