Kale Flakes

Dehydrated kale leaves

Last week I dehydrated kale for 3 days.  I had a lot of kale.  A lot.  I even made a kale & onion pizza and I still had more.    

Placing the torn kale leaves on the trays

Recently, a family member shared a website she had come across {here} where there are instructions for dehydrating kale to make kale powder and instructions for freezing kale as well.

Torn kale pieces filling the tray

I thought, since I always have an abundance of kale coming from the garden, I'd make some kale flakes to use in smoothies, meatloaf, pizzas, & eggs to start. 

5 trays filled with kale leaves

First, you'll want to wash & dry your kale leaves and then tear them into small pieces.  The smaller the better.  Fill your dehydrator trays with a single layer of leaves, trying to not have them touching.  My dehydrator holds 9 trays, but they sit really close together.  I tried and tried to fit all 9 trays in, however the kale kept getting caught on the trays above when I tried sliding the trays in and would curl up.  I ended up just using 5 trays at a time.

Kale dehydrated & crispy

As per the instructions, on the shared link, I set my dehydrator to 125 degrees and set the timer to 4 hours and checked them.  After that I set the timer for 2 more hours.  Most of them were dry and crispy, but for good measure I set it for another hour- so 7 hours total for most of the trays.  I dehydrated 5 trays of kale for 3 days, totaling 15 trays.  

15 trays of dehydrated kale fit in this single bowl

Once you have all of your kale dried & crispy, you can place it in a food processor or blender and pulse until you have crumbly little flakes.  I used my Vitamix dry container and it only took a few seconds to get flakes. Pulse a little more if you want powder.

Kale flakes 

To help transfer the flakes to a jar, I used the wide mouth canning funnel.  Now they're ready to store in the pantry until I'm ready to experiment with adding them to recipes.

Kale flakes ready to store in the pantry until I'm ready to use them

It's really that simple!  I may dehydrate more before the growing season is over.  I'll share my recipe experiments with you all as well.