Recipe: Curly Kale crisps

Curly Kale is a dark green leafy vegetable that is pretty delicious when steamed or boiled – as an accompaniment to a great bit of fish or meat. However, if you’re looking for healthy snacks, you may be aware of the weird looks you get when you whip out a raw bag of curly kale and start munching. The ideal solution for this is to make them into crisps. Yes, crisps! Best of all, it takes less than 20 minutes in total to prepare and make them. Be warned though, these stink like dying cabbage so do be warned if you decide to take these somewhere public.

Curly Kale crisps recipe

You will need:

• Bag of raw curly kale
• Drizzle of olive oil
• A tiny pinch of salt
• An oven heated to 140′
• A baking tray

How to make curly kale crisps

1. Spread your raw curly kale onto your baking tray and make sure these are evenly spread out. You can load it up as it’ll shrink as as it cooks.
2. Drizzle your curly kale with olive oil. If you can’t get them properly coated, pour some olive oil into the palms of your hands and rub it in to each leaf.
3. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt.
4. Put into the oven and leave for 10 minutes. Keep checking them regularly – the last thing you want is carcinogenic charred leaves.
5. Take them out when they’re looking darker and crispy. Leave to cool. And then munch on as a snack.

If , however, the deliciousness of these natural crisps aren’t enough to convince you, get to the bottom of this post and see if I can persuade you to change your mind…

5 Benefits of Curly Kale

1. Curly Kale is a bit of a ‘superfood’ – it contains four times more magnesium and five times more calcium than Brussel sprouts. Magnesium is one of the top three essential minerals, along with calcium, for good health.
2. Curly Kale overtakes carrots with 17 times more Vitamin C and five times more than spinach. Amongst many benefits, Vitamin C helps wounds heal (it’s an important factor in collagen production) and is an antioxidant.
3. Curly Kale contains more folate than broccoli. Folate can help stave off heart disease, is supposed to help reduce depression and keep the brain young.
4. It has seven times more carotene than normal cabbage. Carotene is said to have a positive association with a decrease in cardio-vascular disease as well as being a powerful antioxidant.
5. Curly Kale is also rich in sulphur phytochemicals which many believe to help protect against certain types of cancer. Some of the phytochemicals are also said to help reduce the risk of cataracts and age related macular degeneration (the major cause of loss of vision in the UK).

If you’re looking to get healthy, why not get active? Boxing burns a barrel-ful of calories, is a great skill and there are lots of great boxing classes in London >